Shands for Kids Stories

More than 100 Shands HealthCare employees will dress up in costume and serve guests at the 24th Annual Celebrity Waiter Night. The fun-filled and entertaining event benefits Shands Children’s Hospital at UF. The event will be held at the Holloway Touchdown Terrace on the University of Florida campus on May 18. Each celebrity waiter will dress up in creative costumes according to the theme “Florida Theme Parks” as guests dine on Italian cuisine catered by Napolatano’s Restaurant. Some of the volunteers perform choreographed song and dance numbers for the guests.

Since 1986, Celebrity Waiter Night has raised more than $1.8 million for Shands Children’s Hospital at UF. Ten departments from Shands HealthCare compete to raise these funds: Facilities Development, Finance, Human Resources, Information Services, Legal Services, Managed Care, Nursing, Operations, Pharmacy, and Rehab. An eleventh team is the UF Pediatric Physicians. Event proceeds helps children by funding life-saving medical equipment and diversionary items, granting pediatric research dollars and producing patient-education materials.

Shands Children’s Hospital is located on the campus of the University of Florida. With more than 8,400 children treated in 2008, this children’s program make Shands one of Florida’s leading referral systems for children. UF faculty physicians treat kids from all 67 Florida counties, 46 other states and eight foreign countries. Our UF physicians offer nearly all of the clinical services delivered at any children’s health center in the nation, from basic primary care to highly specialized procedures such as organ and bone marrow transplantation, AIDS treatment, diabetes care and monitoring, neurosurgery and cancer treatment.