Former Wild Forward Jason Zucker Receives $75K Over Zoom Call For #Give16 Foundation

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Former Wild forward Jason Zucker received a donation for $75,000 to be donated towards his #GIVE16 charitable initiative.

Zucker plans for the funds to benefit patients and families at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's hospital who are affected by restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 2, the Zucker's took part in a "Zoom" call with members of the NAPHC planning committee to accept the donation from the DWB Memorial Foundation -- which organizes the event.

"We are absolutely thrilled to put this donation to immediate use on behalf of the kids at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital," Jason Zucker said.

The funds will also help support future programming at the Zucker Family Suite and Broadcast Studio -- which opened in November 2018, as part of the #GIVE16 campaign, to provide a place where patients and their siblings can just be normal kids. The idea was born in part from a friendship between Zucker and young Tucker Helstrom, who passed away in 2016 from a rare form of bone cancer.

"We are so grateful for the support of our sponsors and the community," DWB Memorial Foundation President Steve Youngstedt said. "Even though we couldn't present the check in person, we didn't want to wait until the restrictions were lifted to get these funds into use."

The funds for the donation were raised at the 8th Annual North American Pond Hockey Championship in January.