WM Phoenix Open Presenting Sponsor Taylor Morrison announced last week it is building and donating an initial six fully furnished homes to the Banner Health Foundation. Upon completion, the 16-home community located in Gilbert, Ariz., will support Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Home Away from Home program that provides housing assistance to patients who travel great distances for care at Banner MD Anderson.

Tucson business leader Jeremy Sharpe is leading the Banner Health Foundation’s effort to build a Play Zone at Diamond Children’s Medical Center in Tucson. Once completed, the bright, non-medical Play Zone will give hospitalized kids and teens a space away from their hospital rooms and medical care team to work with certified Child Life Specialists, whose therapeutic interventions are largely play-based—as this is how kids connect to the world around them and master their experiences.

Banner Health plans to open a center specializing in a reversible, yet often misdiagnosed, condition known as normal pressure hydrocephalus, thanks to a $5 million philanthropic gift to the Banner Health Foundation from Jerre and Mary Joy Stead. The center will be part of the Brain & Spine Institute at Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix.

The ongoing support of monthly donors, our True Blue Friends, helps to ensure that Banner Health has resources to be there for everyone in our diverse Arizona communities, regardless of their ability to pay. True Blue Friends are an extension of our Banner Health family, valued partners whose generosity helps us plan for the future.

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The bright, non-medical Play Zone will provide a supportive environment that allows kids to ask questions and explore their emotions. Child Life specialists will work with them to build coping skills, decrease anxiety, address their psychosocial well-being, reduce trauma, and prepare for procedures and treatments.