The PNC Financial Services Group recently donated $1 million to the Penn State Children's Hospital in Hershey.

Donations for the facility's construction now total just under $20 million, although the hospital is still $45 million shy of its final philanthropic goal.

The PNC donation will support an area within the proposed 160,000-square-foot Children's Hospital called the PNC Child and Family Resource Center. Construction for the Children's Hospital also includes the Pediatric Cancer Pavilion, to which the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon has pledged $10 million over the next six years.

Construction on the children's hospital, which has not yet begun, is scheduled for completion within five years and will cost about $108 million total, said Jennifer Schlener, interim development and alumni relations director at the Hershey Medical Center and College of Medicine.

Schlener said the fund-raising project is aiming to cover $65 million of the cost of construction of both facilities. So far, donations have totaled $19.6 million.

The PNC Child and Family Resource Center will also house an injury intervention program. About 23,000 PNC employees chose the gift through a survey, PNC Financial Services spokesman Rob Rutz said.

"The center fits in well with PNC's mission for children," Rutz said. "We polled our employees as to what they would like to see supported, and a donation for children adhered best to PNC's Grow Up Great program, in which employees volunteer in pre-school centers."

Rutz said the PNC Children and Family Resource Center will aid patients in safety education.

"Trauma is the number one killer of children," he said. "[The Child and Family Resource Center] will educate about child safety issues like helmets, seatbelts and car seats for children ages zero to five. The area is specific to that age, but will the resource center will address ages up to 18."

Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said PNC has been a generous partner to Penn State, and a donation of this size will go a long way for Penn State's Medical Center. PNC has also donated money to Penn State in the past -- most recently $1 million toward the construction of the Information Sciences and Technology Building, Rutz said.

Kendig said the medical center is severely under-funded compared to other medical schools across the nation.

"We rank 76 in the country out of 76, so we're dead last," he said. "Certainly construction of the Children's Hospital is one of our priorities, and we are very appreciative that PNC has stepped to the plate with this gift."