LITTLE ROCK – Get a jump on Halloween by attending the Tiny Hands Monster Bash, a fundraiser benefiting the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Family Home and the UAMS Medical Center neonatal intensive care unit. The event is scheduled for 7-11 p.m. Oct. 17 at Pavilion in the Park, 8201 Cantrell, in Little Rock.

Guests are invited to come in costume if they choose and enjoy cocktails, a silent auction, music by The Rockets, and hors d’oeuvres by Catering to You. Tickets are $50. For information or to purchase tickets, call (501) 978-2903.

The UAMS Family Home is a private, nonprofit facility that offers comfortable and affordable housing to patients at the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute and to parents of premature infants being cared for at the UAMS Medical Center. The Family Home also houses the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Auxiliary Cancer Support Center.

The UAMS Medical Center neonatal intensive care unit is one of the most sophisticated facilities in the state, providing care for premature infants and those born with a variety of medical conditions. Many of the infants in the NICU weigh less than two pounds and require weeks or months of specialized care.

UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has 2,538 students and 733 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is one of the state’s largest public employers with about 9,600 employees, including nearly 1,150 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $5 billion a year. Visit www.uams.edu.