Donor Spotlight: Mitch Sandlin

Committed to CHKD Kids

Dairy Queen employees raise their cones at the Great Bridge store in Chesapeake in honor of their CEO, Mitch Sandlin, being named DQ’s national Miracle Maker.

To Mitch Sandlin, nothing is sweeter than knowing his Dairy Queen employees are just as committed as he is to helping the kids at CHKD.

As the owner of Mid Atlantic Dairy Queen, a collection of 14 local restaurants, Mitch created a culture of giving that encourages his employees and customers to support CHKD. In addition to an employee giving program, staff members ask their customers – whom he calls “fans” – to round up at the register for CHKD all year long.

Mitch’s enthusiastic support of CHKD earned him a national award from Dairy Queen as its Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals’ Miracle Maker for 2019. Each year, International Dairy Queen bestows this distinction on one U.S. Dairy Queen franchisee who represents the best of the brand when it comes to their support for local children.

That honor was well-earned. Mitch’s 14 stores garnered an amazing 28 percent of the total funds raised by the 4,500 Dairy Queens in the U.S. and Canada that held round-up campaigns for children’s hospitals in 2019. Last year, Mid Atlantic Dairy Queen stores raised more than $300,000.

“I give the credit to my management team, the employees, and our fans,” says Mitch. “And every penny goes back to CHKD.”

Mid Atlantic Dairy Queen restaurants began raising money for CHKD more than 35 years ago. Mitch wanted to help support CHKD’s commitment to make sure no child who needs medical care is ever turned away. Over the years, colleagues and relatives have turned to CHKD when they needed expert pediatric care.

“CHKD is a great resource for the community,” he says. “We are very fortunate to have it.”

Mitch makes sure his management team tours the hospital every few years so they can see firsthand how their fundraising efforts help CHKD’s young patients. These visits help inspire them to be creative with their store fundraising campaigns. At Virginia Beach’s Landstown restaurant, the manager rallied employees one year by promising to shave his head if they raised $30,000. Once the haircut was finished, all that remained was a swirl of hair on his crown to represent DQ’s iconic ice cream cone curl.

In addition to Miracle Treat Day, which runs nationally each year for children’s hospitals, Mitch’s restaurants dedicated a day last year where 100 percent of the sales from dipped cones went to CHKD. The event celebrated CHKD’s construction milestone of “topping off” its new mental health hospital, which is scheduled to open in 2022.

As CHKD continues to meet the medical and mental health needs of children, Mitch expects fundraising for the hospital to grow. His franchise has pledged to raise $1.25 million over the next five years for the hospital’s mental health initiative.

“There couldn’t be a better way for us to do our civic duty than by helping CHKD,” Mitch says. “Our business is the kids and we want them to be healthy.”