Schreibers donates $25 million to Lurie Children’s Hospital

Local couple Kathleen and John Schreiber are donating $25 million to Lurie Children’s Hospital to build a center dedicated to the health and wellness of children from birth to 5 years old.

The program will be called the Schreiber Family Center for Early Childhood Health and Wellness and will bring together Lurie experts and community organizations to support children and families. It will be part of the Patrick M. Magoon Lurie Institute for Healthy Communities, which focuses on community-based initiatives.

It will support programs that connect expectant parents with doulas and home visits. It will also partner with programs aimed at promoting children’s resilience and social-emotional well-being, and work to improve early childhood education. The center’s work is expected to benefit children throughout the Chicago area, with an emphasis on the city’s West Side.

The money will also be used to research ways to help newborns and very young children who face inequality.

“Providing high-quality health care and cutting-edge research is critical, but it is not enough to meet the critical needs of our youth,” said Dr. Thomas Shanley, president and CEO of Lurie Children. “We need to focus on the underlying drivers of health and racial disparities that our children and communities face. The foresight of the Schreiber family will help us in this work.”

Schreiber grew up in Chicago and studied at Loyola University before going to Harvard Business School. He then spent 20 years in real estate investment management and founded the Blackstone Group real estate investment management business in New York.