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Garden Grove Investment Banker Gifts $30M To Children's Hospital Of OC

ORANGE (CBS) — Children's Hospital of Orange County has received a $30 million estate gift, the largest donation in the hospital's history.

The gift comes from the estate of Robert L. Tidwell and will support the $125 million "Change CHOC, Change the World" campaign. The campaign is working to make Orange County one of the safest and healthiest places for children in the nation, president and chief executive of CHOC, Kim Cripe said.

"This generous gift will help CHOC achieve various strategic objectives as we progress from being a crucial regional pediatric care center to one of the nation's leading children's hospitals," she said. "The funds will be balanced between our construction needs and investment in future growth and development."

Half of the money will be used to support CHOC's Master Campus Plan, which includes the construction of a seven-story patient care tower slated to open in 2013. CHOC will recognize Tidwell by naming the surgery center in the new patient care tower in his honor.

The other half of the gift will go into a board-restricted fund to advance pediatric medicine through clinical program development, recruiting pediatric experts and funding the Robert L. Tidwell Endowment for Opthalmology.

Tidwell was a longtime Garden Grove resident and investment banker who left his entire estate to CHOC when he died in 2009.

The gift was recently transferred to the CHOC Children's Foundation, which raises funds for the nonprofit pediatric healthcare system.

With Tidwell's gift, CHOC is two-thirds of the way toward its goal of raising $125 million for its campaign. CHOC still has $39 million to raise to reach its campaign goal by June 30, 2013.

(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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