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Late Teacher Leaves $2.3 Million Gift to Children’s Hospital A Generous Donation From a Syracuse School Teacher

By Emily Coffey

Generous Donation
© 2021 Allison Turner

EMILY COFFEY: A children’s hospital is a place of both sadness and happiness. A place of both pain and joy. A place that requires people like Allison Della Penna, a child life specialist who is making an impact in children’s lives each and every day.

As a child life specialist Allison works with pediatric burn patients and their families. Walking these families through one of the most difficult times in their lives, but why would someone be drawn to a career like this? For Allison, it all started when she was a little girl, and her brother griffin was diagnosed with leukemia.

ALLISON DELLA PENNA: Our job is really obviously, really helping kids understand what is going on, and helping their families as a whole. My experience with my brother, being sick when he was younger. We had child life specialists that worked with him and worked with me as a sibling to help them, you know help me as a child to understand what was happening to my sibling.

EMILY COFFEY: But Allison isn’t the only one making an impact in this story or even at this hospital. Marylin C. Miller, a retired school teacher is making a huge impact to the children’s hospital in the form of a donation. A huge donation.

Marilyn C. Miller is not the type of donor most people would expect. She was a retired Syracuse school district teacher whose parents left their house to her, their only child, and Marilyn just happened to be good at managing money.

Marilyn passed away in 2021 and left 2.3 million dollars to the children’s hospital. Though Marilyn’s obituary listed no other survivors. other than her parents who she took care of until they died, and a friend who was more like a sister, Anne Meltzer who died four years before her.

Marilyn continues to help others not only survive but thrive as each child and family is blessed by her generosity for years to come.

Allison knows this first hand.

ALLISON DELLA PENNA: It’s not only just the patient that’s being affected by the injury or illness. It’s their whole family.

EMILY COFFEY: Little feet will continue to walk in and out of these hospital doors, but with the generosity of people like Allison and Marilyn the burden they carry on that walk has just become a little but lighter.

in Syracuse, I’m Emily Coffey for NCC News.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News)— A retired Syracuse City School District teacher has left $2.3 million to be used at a local children’s hospital.

Marilyn C. Miller, who died two years ago at age 79, donated this money to be used for pediatric health care at Golisano Children’s Hospital. In 2022, the Upstate Foundation received $600,000 from Miller’s estate and now an additional $1.7 million has been gifted, according to the Upstate Foundation.

Allison Della Penna, a child life specialist at the children’s hospital knows first hand the impact that this kind of donation has and will continue to have on the hospital.

“For the child life department the Upstate Foundation funds us doing all the things we do for families, and all the materials we use,” said Della Penna.

Miller’s obituary listed no survivors. She took care of her elderly parents until they died. The only other person named was Anne Meltzer, who was a friend of Miller, but she considered her to be more like a sister. Meltzer died four years before Miller.

The $1.7 million gift from the estate will be used by the departments of pediatrics and psychiatry. Another portion will be used used on child and adolescent mental health.

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