Wappingers School Partnership Brings Gifts to Pediatric Unit at MidHudson Regional Hospital

Hundreds of children from elementary through high school learned real-life STEAM lessons after creating projects to benefit pediatric patients

Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (July 15, 2025) – While learning about empathy and connecting with their community, Wappingers school students used their math and science skills to create real-life projects that will benefit the children at MidHudson Regional Hospital. 

Thanks to their work, the hospital has been gifted with a mini-golf course, golf simulator, and student-created videos and nature magazines that will entertain young patients and their families at the Maria Fareri Children’s Healthcare Services. The simulator, which will be the newest addition to the community room, is being funded by a grant from the Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley. 

“We are so grateful to the Wappingers Central School District and its students for undertaking this wonderful project that will bring joy to children and their families,’’ said Elissa Chessari, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer at MidHudson Regional Hospital. “We were excited to participate in this project, which helped students from elementary through high school learn more about healthcare and use their learned skills to do so much good for our community.’’

Dr. Dwight Bock, Superintendent of Wappingers Central School District said, “We greatly appreciate our partnership with Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital, which provides our students with the proper perspective in learning and understanding the important role that medical facilities play in our community and exposing them to the types of opportunities that are available in the careers that are vital in serving the health and wellness needs of our community.”

MidHudson Regional Hospital, a member of the Westchester Medical Health Network (WMCHealth), opened the Maria Fareri Children’s Healthcare Services Emergency Services and Inpatient Pediatrics unit at the hospital in 2022, bringing the advanced healthcare of the renowned Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla to local families. This state-of-the-art unit features thoughtfully designed private inpatient suites with bathrooms, vibrant child-centric therapy environments for enriched music and art therapy, and reflects WMCHealth's unwavering commitment to delivering world-class, family-centered pediatric care—right here in our community.

Tara Koehler and John Salmon, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) Professional Development Specialists with the Wappingers Central School District, said 370 students from six schools in the district, ranging from first grade through high school, were involved in the project designed to use their STEAM skills to achieve real-world results. This is the fourth year of the partnership. 

After speaking with staff from the pediatric unit, students decided to create several projects that they felt children and families would enjoy. In creating the mini-golf course, elementary students learned measuring skills to plot out the holes, and the principles of physics behind the forces applied when hitting the ball. The younger students passed their work on to the high school students, who then built the mini-golf course.

Because some hospitalized children confined to their beds might not be able to use the mini-golf course, students created videos and magazines about animals and nature topics that they could read and watch on hospital iPads. 

Kohler and Salmon said they hoped to continue the partnership with MidHudson Regional Hospital so that other children can apply their studies and bring real-world relevance to science knowledge, while learning empathy and the importance of giving back to their community.  

About Westchester Medical Center Health Network
The Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth) is a 1,700-bed healthcare system headquartered in Valhalla, New York, with nine hospitals on seven campuses spanning 6,200 square miles of the Hudson Valley. WMCHealth employs more than 12,000 people and has nearly 3,000 attending physicians. The Network has Level I (adult and pediatric), Level II and Level III trauma centers, the region’s only acute care children’s hospital, an academic medical center, several community hospitals, dozens of specialized institutes and centers, Comprehensive and Primary Stroke Centers, skilled nursing facilities, and one of the largest mental health systems in New York State. Today, WMCHealth is the pre-eminent provider of integrated health care in the Hudson Valley. For more information about WMCHealth, visit WMCHealth.org or follow WMCHealth on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X.