On Oct. 20, the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center held its 19th annual CHaD HERO fundraiser event, raising $825,000 for local child healthcare. This community event provides funding for critical child and family support services at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (CHaD) and throughout the Dartmouth Health Children’s system.
“I’m thankful to our incredible CHaD Hero participants, donors and sponsors who helped raise critical funding for services to families in our community and beyond,” said Keith J. Loud, MD, Physician in Chief of Dartmouth Health Children’s.
The CHaD HERO event brings together the community to support the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
The Genesis of CHaD HERO
For Jeff Hastings, asking people for money didn’t come naturally. But when he was appointed as a board member at the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (CHaD) in 2004, he recognized that children and families in his community needed support-and began brainstorming how to help.
“[CHaD] needed people who would ask for money,” Hastings says. He took the concept to Sharon Brown, then director of CHaD Community Relations. “We were hoping to expand our events to invite broad community participation and give people a chance to fundraise for CHaD,” Brown recalls.
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Back then, the event was modest; just 700 runners, a finish line, and the goal to raise critical funds for CHaD’s programs and services. The inaugural event started in Etna, N.H. “The event had incredible energy with the founding members,” Hastings says. Twenty years later, that scrappy afternoon race has grown into the CHaD HERO, a full-day celebration of movement, community, and cause.
The event has changed course numerous times, moved from summer to fall, and now includes runs of different lengths, walks, virtual events, and a festival on the Dartmouth Green.
What Makes CHaD HERO Unique?
What sets the CHaD HERO apart from similar fundraisers is its grassroots, youth-driven spirit-powered by local families, patients, and kids themselves, many of whom are participants. It’s now the largest single community fundraising event supporting a children’s hospital in northern New England.
“It’s so much more than a fundraising event or race for a cause,” says Olive Isaacs, senior director of community fundraising and engagement. “It's a unique opportunity for this community of neighbors and friends, people who have been cared for by CHaD, to come together and celebrate.
The Children’s Hospital supplied each participant with a personal fundraising page to send to supporters for donations, according to participant Sydney Grogean ’28. According to Isaacs, the Children’s Hospital decided to remove registration fees for the CHaD HERO event starting in 2023, a move that has increased participation from 2,000 to 3,1000 over the last two years.
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2015 CHaD HERO Video
2015 CHaD HERO Video
Dartmouth student participants reported sharing the passion for local philanthropy. Isaacs said the “long-standing relationships with various groups within the Dartmouth College ecosystem” helped the event run smoothly this year.
“The entire finish line was lined with members of the men’s hockey team, the women’s hockey team [and] the women’s soccer team,” Isaacs said.
One of most fervent early members of the organizing team was Nini Meyer, a runner and mother of two. Generations of Meyer’s family joined as participants, volunteers, and supporters. In 2008, Meyer’s sons friend, Cam Marshall, was being treated for leukemia at CHaD.
“People were bringing over lasagnas [for Cam and his family], and I do not cook,” Meyer laughs. Within a week, Meyer helped organize a tribute run. “It was all very last-minute, a real mad dash,” she says, adding that a horrible rainstorm threatened participation. “But so many people showed up anyway.
Today, Cam’s Course, a one-mile fun run, remains a CHaD HERO cornerstone. “An enormous amount of our [CHaD HERO] participants are kids,” Isaacs says. “Programs like Positive Tracks and Finding Our Stride show them early that activity and movement can be about helping others, not just competing, which teaches gratitude. Kids learn they can give back-to their community and even to strangers.
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Participants in the CHaD HERO event, showcasing community support and engagement.
As the event evolved over time, so did its identity. That year, race organizers took the HERO energy even further. “Something happens when you put people in a cape,” Meyer says. “They get a little bit wacky. They feel like a hero. They act like a hero.
“As we look to the next 20 years of the CHaD HERO, we’re committed to deepening the connections between our hospital and the communities we serve,” says Keith Loud, MD, physician-in-chief at Dartmouth Health Children’s. “We’re exploring new ways to bring the HERO spirit to families across New Hampshire and Vermont-whether that’s expanding events, building new partnerships, or making it easier for kids and families to get involved.
Hastings agrees wholeheartedly. “The possibilities are great,” he says. “We started with a vision that’s now reinventing itself. Everybody loves CHaD.
As New Hampshire's only full-service, comprehensive children's hospital, the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth‐Hitchcock (CHaD) is committed to providing outstanding compassionate care for children and their families. Their physician expertise provides primary, specialty, and tertiary care to the children of New Hampshire, Vermont, and beyond. CHaD offers inpatient (hospital care) and outpatient (same day care) services at Dartmouth‐Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. Outpatient and same-day surgery services are available at Dartmouth‐Hitchcock Manchester.
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and the state’s largest private employer, serves patients across northern New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,000 providers in almost every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH, as well as across its wide network of hospitals, clinics and care facilities.
Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, one of only 57 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation, and the only such center in northern New England; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital and multiple locations around the region; member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire; and more than 24 clinics that provide ambulatory and specialty services across New Hampshire and Vermont.
Through its historical partnership with Dartmouth and the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually, and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials recognized across the globe with Geisel and the White River Junction VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT.
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