Madison, Wisconsin (Wisconsin State Journal) American Girl founder and philanthropist Pleasant Rowland is donating $10 million toward the construction of a new transplant clinic at UW Hospital, UW Health is announcing Tuesday.
Rowland, who has given tens of millions to the Madison arts community, in 2012 received a kidney transplant at UW Hospital, one of the nation’s largest transplant centers.
“This gift today is my way of saying thank you to the team for the incredible care I received here, to the many donors and their families for making such a selfless choice, and as a gift to all the transplant recipients who will come here seeking a second chance at life,” Rowland said in a statement.
It’s a step he tried to avoid through diet, exercise, medications, implanted devices and research into his family history, which led to the discovery that his great-grandfather died from the heart condition at 40 in 1900. Other relatives, male and female, died from it in their 30s and 40s.
“I worked hard to not have to get a transplant, but there’s no escaping genetics,” Wolff said.
His heart problems led him to stop performing procedures in October 2019 and start working half-time seeing only clinic patients. But with his new heart and kidney, he’s back to hiking the Ice Age Trail near his home north of Cross Plains, where he grows organic vegetables. He hopes to return to work part time this spring.