RALEIGH, N.C. — On Saturday, March 12th, as part of the News & Observer's annual Kids Day fundraiser, a Penny Jar Championship event was held at Crabtree Valley Mall. WRAL's Valonda Calloway emceed the event and thanked each and every child who donated pennies to support children's emergency services at WakeMed.

SLIDESHOW:

WRAL-TV along with sister radio station MIX 101.5 is an annual sponsor of the Kids Day event. The News and Observer sells a special Kids Day edition of the newspaper for $1 per copy, with 75 cents going directly to help the kids who receive care at WakeMed. Kids Day papers include special content about WakeMed's care for children and are available only through advance orders or from sales volunteers on Tuesday, March 15.

Kids Day 2005 dollars are designated for children's emergency services at WakeMed's three full-service, 24-hour emergency departments in Raleigh, Cary and North Raleigh (opening this summer). All three facilities are staffed with physicians and nurses trained in both adult and pediatric emergency medicine and are equipped to meet the needs of our children.

In its first three years, Kids Day supporters raised more than $250,000 for WakeMed. The money helped expand and specially equip the Level III Intensive Care Nursery, which cares for our community's premature and critically ill infants, and expand the state's first freestanding children's emergency department, which cares for over 40,000 kids each year.