$10 million gift from Cari Peets and family gives children affected by abuse and trauma a place to heal, rebuild trust, and find hope
$10 million from philanthropist Cari Peets and her family is giving some of Southern California’s most vulnerable children something that cannot be measured simply in dollars: a place where they can feel safe, where adults listen, where medical and emotional care come together, and where the painful experiences of childhood need not determine the rest of their lives.
The family’s commitment to Rady Children’s Health, Orange County, formerly Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), will significantly expand the hospital’s Resilience Program, an ambitious effort to transform how children affected by abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences receive care.
The gift names the Mrs. Cari Peets and Family Resilience Clinic, which opened in October, and establishes the Mrs. Cari Peets and Family Chair in Childhood Resilience, an endowed academic and clinical leadership position intended to sustain and advance the program for generations.
For the Peets family, whose cumulative philanthropy to the organization now exceeds $11 million, the commitment reflects a deeply personal conviction that children deserve more than treatment for their immediate injuries or emotional distress.
They deserve the chance to regain their sense of security, build trusting relationships, and grow into healthy, confident adults.
“Our family believes every child deserves to be seen, heard, and supported,” Cari Peets said in announcing the gift. “We are so proud to elevate this important cause and partner with Dr. Golden and Rady Children’s to bring compassionate care and protection to children who need it most.”
Behind the announcement is a reality that rarely attracts the attention devoted to more visible advances in pediatric medicine.
For a child who has experienced abuse, neglect, or the sudden disruption of family life, an ordinary medical appointment can be anything but ordinary.
A young child entering foster care may have left home with little warning, separated from familiar surroundings, possessions, routines, and the people who once represented security.
Another may be struggling with nightmares, anxiety, or unexplained physical symptoms. A teenager may struggle to trust adults, attend school, or believe the future can be different from the past.
These are not hypothetical diagnoses or problems that can always be resolved in a single consultation. They are the complicated, often interconnected consequences of experiences that can affect physical health, emotional development, and relationships for years.
And for the adults trying to help, the system can be bewildering.
A foster parent may need to arrange a medical examination, locate a mental health professional, investigate developmental concerns, coordinate with a social worker, and find appropriate community resources, all while helping a frightened child adjust to an unfamiliar home.
The Peets family’s gift supports a different approach: bring the professionals together, coordinate their work, and make the child, rather than the complexity of the healthcare system, the center of every decision.
The need is substantial.
According to Rady Children’s, approximately 26,000 children in Orange County received support from Child Protective Services in 2025, while more than 1,200 entered out-of-home placements, including foster care. More than 3,000 children in the county are currently in foster care, and approximately half are six years old or younger.
Behind those figures are infants, preschoolers, schoolchildren, and teenagers whose circumstances can change suddenly and whose needs often extend well beyond conventional medical treatment.
The Mrs. Cari Peets and Family Resilience Clinic, located on the sixth floor of the Purple Tower at the hospital’s Orange campus, is designed to address those needs in one coordinated setting.
Its multidisciplinary approach combines pediatric medicine, expertise in child abuse, psychology, social work, nursing, care management, and support for caregivers.
Rather than expecting families to navigate a succession of disconnected appointments, the clinic works to identify concerns early, develop individualized plans, and connect children with the services most likely to help them.
The program includes initial health assessments for children entering foster care, comprehensive medical and developmental evaluations, behavioral health assessments, continuing mental health services, and assistance with accessing community resources.
California requires an initial health assessment within 72 hours of a child’s entry into foster care and a comprehensive assessment within 30 days. The clinic is structured to help children receive timely evaluations while also establishing the continuing relationships that are essential to their well-being.
That continuity matters.
A child recovering from trauma may need a pediatrician who understands how emotional distress can manifest physically, a psychologist who recognizes the effects of disrupted attachment, and a social worker who can help stabilize circumstances outside the examination room.
A caregiver may need reassurance, practical guidance, and an experienced professional to call when new challenges emerge.
By treating these needs as connected rather than separate, the Resilience Program seeks to replace fragmented encounters with sustained, compassionate care.
There is also a particularly human detail in the clinic’s design.
Alongside its clinical services, the program maintains a Confidence Closet, stocked with donated clothing, backpacks, school supplies, and personal care essentials for children in need.
For a child arriving in unfamiliar surroundings, something as ordinary as a new backpack, a toothbrush, or a change of clothes can offer a small measure of dignity and normalcy at a moment when both may feel scarce.
The closet reflects a broader understanding of childhood trauma: healing is not confined to what happens during a medical examination. It also depends on the everyday experiences through which children begin to feel cared for, respected, and included.
The clinic’s plans include additional caregiver coaching and specialized child life support, further recognizing that the people surrounding a child are an essential part of recovery.
Its operating schedule is also expected to expand from four to five days a week in 2027, extending access to children and families who need its services.
The commitment also addresses a challenge that can be less visible than the immediate need for treatment: how to sustain specialized care long after a new program has opened its doors.
The Mrs. Cari Peets and Family Chair in Childhood Resilience will be the third endowed chair at Rady Children’s Orange County. Dr. Charles Golden, the hospital’s vice president and assistant chief medical officer, who leads the Resilience Program, will be its inaugural holder.
An endowed chair provides a continuing source of support for clinical leadership, innovation, and program development. In this case, it is intended to help ensure that the Resilience Program can continue adapting as understanding of childhood trauma advances and as the needs of children and families change.
The distinction is important.
The Peets family is not simply helping to open a clinic.
Its commitment is designed to establish the foundation for an enduring center of expertise.
Dr. Golden has emphasized that vulnerable children need to experience safety, consistent care, and meaningful support, particularly after traumatic events.
He said the family’s philanthropy allows the hospital to provide that kind of care to children and caregivers who might otherwise struggle to get it.
The Peets family’s involvement with the hospital began long before this announcement.
Cari and her husband, Chad Peets, managing partner of RPT Capital Partners, have built a philanthropic relationship with Rady Children’s that supports child protection, mental health, medical research, and families facing some of life’s most difficult circumstances.
The hospital’s 2025 annual report offers a revealing account of the family’s priorities.
That year, their philanthropy included a $2 million pledge supporting outpatient programs involving child protection, intervention for victims of human trafficking, mental health, trauma-informed care, and suicide prevention.
They also committed $250,000 to research into energy metabolism, an area of medicine relevant to understanding and treating complex pediatric metabolic disorders.
Together, these efforts reflect a willingness to support both the sophisticated science of children’s medicine and the deeply human needs of young patients whose difficulties may not be immediately apparent.
In an interview published in the annual report, Cari and Chad explained that their commitment to children’s healthcare is rooted in their own experience as parents of four children.
They described the hospital’s dedication to caring for every child, regardless of circumstances, as an expression of the same unconditional love they feel for their family.
Their philosophy also extends to those with the means to help others.
For the couple, philanthropy is a chance to turn personal gratitude into practical action, giving children and families access to exceptional care when they may be least able to manage on their own.
Their hope, they explained, is not only to advance research and expand treatment, but also to inspire their children to continue a family tradition of generosity.
This ambition is especially meaningful in the context of the new Resilience Clinic: a family investing in the well-being of other families while teaching its next generation that privilege carries responsibilities beyond the household.
The Peets family has also become an important advocate for children’s mental health, a field in which growing awareness has not always been matched by adequate resources or accessible treatment.
For two consecutive years, the family served as the presenting sponsor of the CHOC Let’s Talk: Mental Health Luncheon, an event that brings together philanthropists, medical professionals, and community leaders to confront the emotional and psychological challenges facing young people.
The most recent gathering, held October 8, 2026, at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, raised $1.38 million for pediatric mental health programs.
Keynote speaker Misty Copeland, the celebrated ballerina, author, and founder of the Misty Copeland Foundation, has a remarkable career that has made her a powerful voice for perseverance, opportunity, and mentorship.
The event explored the pressures confronting children and adolescents, including anxiety, stress, performance expectations and the importance of supportive relationships.
The family’s role as presenting sponsor represented more than financial participation. It helped create a public platform for conversations that many families still find difficult to initiate.
By supporting both the mental health luncheon and the Resilience Clinic, the Peets family is addressing two related needs: encouraging communities to recognize children’s emotional struggles and helping ensure that specialized services are available when those struggles require professional intervention.
The family’s sustained commitment recently earned another distinction.
At the CHOC Foundation’s 2026 Charley Awards, Cari Peets and her family received the Outstanding Philanthropist Award, one of the foundation’s highest forms of recognition.
The awards are named in honor of Charles Hester, a longtime hospital board leader whose service and philanthropy helped establish a tradition of community involvement in children’s healthcare.
In recognizing the Peets family, the foundation highlighted not only its financial commitments but also its advocacy for children affected by trauma, abuse, neglect and mental health challenges.
That recognition speaks to an important quality of their giving. The family’s support is concentrated in areas where compassion, specialized expertise and consistent personal attention can make a profound difference, yet where the needs of children are sometimes difficult for the wider community to see.
The timing of the latest gift is also significant for Rady Children’s Health itself.
In January 2025, the parent organizations of Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego came together to establish Rady Children’s Health, creating one of the country’s largest pediatric healthcare systems.
The combined organization now operates three hospitals and a broad network of primary and specialty care centers across six Southern California counties, bringing together clinical expertise, research capabilities and a shared commitment to improving children’s health.
For Orange County families, the historic CHOC name continues to carry decades of trust and familiarity, even as the organization benefits from the resources of a larger regional healthcare system.
Within that evolving institution, the Resilience Program illustrates a growing recognition that pediatric excellence must encompass much more than the treatment of disease.
Children’s hospitals have long been celebrated for performing complicated surgeries, treating rare conditions and developing life-saving therapies. Increasingly, their responsibilities also include understanding how family instability, violence, poverty, neglect and other adverse experiences can shape health throughout childhood and into adult life.
The medical evidence underlying this approach is compelling.
Adverse childhood experiences, commonly known as ACEs, can include physical or emotional abuse, exposure to domestic violence, parental substance misuse, disrupted family relationships and separation from familiar caregivers.
Repeated exposure to such experiences is associated with increased risks of anxiety, depression, behavioral difficulties and physical health problems later in life.
But these outcomes are not inevitable.
Supportive relationships, timely medical and psychological intervention, stable living arrangements and consistent access to trusted adults can help protect children from some of the lasting consequences of trauma.
That understanding lies at the heart of the Resilience Program.
Rather than viewing a child’s traumatic experiences as an unchangeable predictor of future difficulties, the program is built around the possibility of recovery, growth and renewed confidence.
Its guiding principle is that what happens after trauma can matter enormously.
The program’s medical team brings substantial specialized expertise to this work.
Rady Children’s child abuse pediatrics division includes physicians trained to evaluate children who may have experienced maltreatment and to distinguish medical findings from assumptions or misunderstandings.
Its professionals work with psychologists, nurses, social workers, care coordinators and community agencies.
They also collaborate with child protective services, law enforcement, courts and other organizations when a child’s circumstances require coordinated intervention.
The division contributes to medical education as well, helping train future pediatricians and other healthcare professionals in the recognition and treatment of childhood abuse and neglect.
This broader role gives the Peets family’s gift significance beyond the children who will visit the clinic directly.
By supporting an established program of specialized care, clinical leadership and professional collaboration, the family is helping strengthen the local capacity to respond to childhood trauma.
The benefits may extend to foster parents better equipped to understand a child’s behavior, physicians better prepared to identify signs of abuse, and community partners better able to coordinate the services children need.
There is something especially thoughtful about the family’s decision to combine the naming of a working clinic with an endowed chair.
One addresses the immediate, practical needs of children and caregivers.
The other looks ahead, helping sustain the knowledge, leadership and resources on which the clinic will depend.
Together, they express a philanthropic vision that is both compassionate and disciplined.
A new clinic may offer a child access to a psychologist today. A lasting endowment can help support the program’s ability to serve other children years from now.
A care manager may help a foster parent coordinate appointments this week. The program’s continued development may help future families receive assistance more quickly and with fewer obstacles.
For Cari Peets and her family, the investment also demonstrates the potential of philanthropy to address problems that do not lend themselves to simple solutions.
There is no single procedure that erases the effects of abuse.
No medication can instantly restore a child’s trust. No medical examination, however sophisticated, can by itself provide the stable relationships and emotional security on which healthy development depends.
Recovery often unfolds gradually, through the cumulative influence of people who show up, listen carefully, provide skilled treatment and remain involved.
The clinic’s purpose is to make those relationships and services more accessible, more coordinated and more dependable.
Jessica Miley, senior vice president and chief development officer at the CHOC Foundation, has praised the Peets family’s generosity and commitment to the children and families of Orange County, emphasizing that their advocacy and philanthropy will help young patients recover and flourish.
Her appreciation reflects the unusual value of a gift directed toward children whose greatest needs may be hidden from public view.
Ultimately, the importance of the $10 million commitment will be reflected in experiences that rarely make headlines.
A young child entering foster care may receive a comprehensive health assessment without a prolonged wait. A caregiver may find knowledgeable professionals who understand why a child is frightened or withdrawn. A teenager who has endured repeated instability may begin to establish a trusting relationship with a therapist.
A child who has lost familiar possessions may leave an appointment with a backpack and the simple reassurance that someone has thought about what they need for school.
These are illustrations of the everyday possibilities the program is designed to create, rather than reported accounts of individual patients. Yet they capture the very real human purpose behind the investment.
For a family whose giving now exceeds $11 million, the latest commitment represents an important expansion of a philanthropic relationship built around the conviction that children’s health includes their physical safety, emotional security, and ability to look toward the future with hope.
It also offers a compelling example of family philanthropy at its most constructive: parents and children supporting an institution whose work reaches other parents and children, strengthening the fabric of a community in ways that can endure across generations.
The Mrs. Cari Peets and Family Resilience Clinic will carry the family’s name. Its greater significance, however, will lie in the lives of children who may never meet the people whose generosity helped make their care possible.
For those children, the promise is both modest and profound.
That a difficult beginning does not have to define an entire life.
And that somewhere in Orange County, a place is dedicated to helping them discover what comes next.