Joe and Kathy Sanderson are chairing a $100 million fundraising campaign for Children's of Mississippi, the umbrella organization that includes all pediatric care at UMMC and Batson Children's Hospital.

Leading by doing, the CEO and chairman of the board of Sanderson Farms and his wife are not only heading up the drive, the largest in the history of Children's of Mississippi, but they are also making the campaign's first large gift: $10 million over the next five years.

“This is a wonderful day for the medical center,” said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

Dr. Norman C. Nelson, who led the University of Mississippi Medical Center during 21 years of its most dynamic growth, died at his home on April 21. He was 86.

In Mississippi, 22 percent of residents cope with food insecurity - not knowing where their next meal is coming from, be it nutritious fare or nothing but a bag of sodium-laden potato chips. 

That's the highest rate in the nation for what the federal government defines as limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the inability to get nutritious food because of a lack of transportation, money or sheer availability. It might be because a family has run out of resources at the end of the month, but had food at the beginning of the month.

Finding solutions to food insecurity is a major focus of a new partnership that links researchers and population health experts at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Mississippi State University with UMMC's Myrlie Evers-Williams Institute for the Elimination of Health Disparities. The agreement significantly expands ongoing collaborative projects between MSU and UMMC, and it cultivates new opportunities to end health disparities.

Mississippi State President Dr. Mark Keenum and Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, sealed the partnership April 18 by signing a memorandum of understanding during a ceremony held on the MSU campus in Starkville.

A number of interesting events is scheduled for the upcoming week at the Medical Center.