The Raiders made the largest donation in team history Monday, gifting Intermountain Health $25 million toward the construction of the first stand-alone children’s hospital in Southern Nevada.

The contribution is made up of $10 million from the Raiders and $5 million each from team owners Mark Davis, Egon Durban and Michael Meldman.

“The Las Vegas Raiders are making our largest philanthropic commitment in franchise history because we are dedicated to building a healthier future for kids in Nevada,” Davis said in a statement. “We want this gift to remind children and families that they have our team backing them, and that the support of the entire Raider Nation is in their corner.”

The children’s hospital will be the first of its kind in Nevada and be built at the UNLV Harry Reid Research and Technology Park in the southwest valley.

The 828,000-square-foot stand-alone children’s hospital will sit on a 33-acre site and include 180 patient beds. Advanced emergency services designed for children and a full outpatient center as well as inpatient and specialty care will be offered at the facility.

“The Raiders are committed to excellence, and this gift is a generational investment that will keep families closer, strengthen our community, and give every kid every chance to thrive,” Mitch Cloward, Intermountain Health region president, said in a statement.

Raiders minority owner Meldman said he felt it was important to make his $5 million contribution toward the hospital project, saying he has lived in Las Vegas for around three years and wants to make an impact outside of the football operations.

“We’re truly a Raider family, and all of us are friends and we know each other and we’re growing together with the Raiders,” Meldman told the Review-Journal. “Hopefully, we make a big impact on Raider Nation, but the big impact for the children’s hospital’s important to us. We’re all very philanthropic in our daily life. … Being able to be a big part of something new in Las Vegas where it means (a lot) to the city, means a lot to me personally and a lot to the Raiders. So it’s just a great day and an easy contribution for us to make.”

The hospital is expected to cost more than $1 billion to build, with plans to break ground tentatively scheduled in October, with completion planned for 2030, according to David Flood, chief development officer for Intermountain Health and president of the Intermountain Foundation.

“It’s probably about $1.2 billion, but by the time you add in all the programming, it’ll be far more than that,” Flood told the Review-Journal. “There are going to be other things that we’re going to want to bring to it. Getting the building up is going to be one part of it, but we’re going to want to recruit folks, locally, from outside the region to come in (as) specialists. We’re going to come in and, again, help to change lives here. We’ll do that through research funds and other opportunities to really sophisticate this building we’re going to put up, which is going to be extraordinary, but there’s going to be a whole lot more than that. There’ll be research, there’ll be programming; it’ll be fantastic.”

Having the Raiders make such a large investment in the project is a great contribution that will also help get word out about the plans and encourage others to chip in, Flood said.

“They asked early on how they could help, how they could be part of it,” Flood said. “They wanted to be proactive. They wanted to help set the pace. And we said about this campaign that this is going to be one of the most important campaigns in health care we’ve ever seen here. If something’s going to be historic, it’s because people make historic investments, and that’s what they’ve just done. … So we’re just blessed. We’re really fortunate to have them as part of our world. Hopefully, it’s going to ignite other people to get involved.”

Intermountain Health has been a partner of the Raiders since 2019 and is the naming rights partner for the team’s Henderson practice facility.

The Intermountain Health Nevada Children’s Hospital’s physical therapy and rehabilitation space, along with its bistro will be named in honor of the Raiders for their donation.

The future Las Vegas Raiders Bistro will be located adjacent to the hospital’s main lobby and will serve the families whose children are being cared for at the facility.

The Las Vegas Raiders Inpatient Rehab Gym will be where children heal and recover and will feature advanced therapeutic equipment and playful design elements to make the space effective yet fun for the kids who will use the space.

“When we invest in children, we invest in everything that comes next — their education, their opportunities, and their future,” Sandra Douglass Morgan said in a statement. “We want Nevada’s kids to know that their home team is cheering them on.”

The hospital will allow Southern Nevada families who have children who need specialty care to have a space locally and not force them to travel outside of the state to seek care.

That process not only spreads families apart when they are traveling and having to deal with the physical and mental tolls caring for a child with an illness can present, it also includes a hefty cost associated with flying and driving out of the state for care, according to Samantha Delk. She’s has had to do that to get care for her 12-year-old son Colston, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer called neuroblastoma.

The Delks had to travel back-and-forth to Intermountain’s Salt Lake City facility for more than 20 surgeries, multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, two bone marrow transplants and other medical care.

“We were back-and-forth for 2½ years,” Delk said. “We still go back-and-forth between all the scans, all of his treatment, all of his surgeries, even something as simple as like he would get a fever, he would be in the hospital, we would have to go and get blood, we’d have to get platelets, something that can’t be done here right now and we would always have to go travel. It will be nice once it’s here and everything can just be done at one facility rather than having to travel for just the simple things like a common cold, (which) to an average kid is nothing. A common cold to someone who has an illness is life or death.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.