On the Town: Soiree benefits new emergency room at Providence St. Joseph
Earlier this year, a fundraising committee established through the Providence St. Joseph Foundation launched a five-year project to raise funds to establish and build new state-of-the-art emergency and urgent-care facilities at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center.
As a part of the fundraising campaign, Michael Mayne, who serves as the foundation’s senior development officer and philanthropic gifts adviser, and the committee’s co-chairs, former Burbank Mayor Michael Hastings and his wife, Kathy, and former Burbank Police Commission member Nat Rubinfeld and his wife, Alma, have held mixers and public-awareness meetings to engage community members, educate them on the planned upgrades and encourage their philanthropic support.
This past week, as a part of the ongoing awareness campaign, local builder Steve Srour and his wife, Orit, an accomplished interior designer, opened their Toluca Lake home for the most recent in the ongoing series of fundraisers.
Among the special guests in attendance at last week’s soiree was Dr. Angelique Campen, a critical care specialist at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center.
“We are doing even better than we anticipated at the outset of this campaign,” Campen told the gathering. “That is because everyone who hears about what we are doing quickly realizes that an upgraded ER facility is a need that benefits everyone in our community and the region.”
Campen went on to say that, in the past year alone, more than 68,000 people relied on the local hospital’s medical staff who work in the 38-year-old emergency room.
“We save lives on a daily basis, and we are in need of a new facility to practice the medicine we are capable of providing,” Campen said. “We are also in need of an urgent-care facility located right on campus to unburden our emergency care, and be able to quickly move patients with serious medical issues right into the ER.”
The campaign’s goal to raise $70 million will build a facility that will improve triage to reduce wait times, double the number of treatment rooms, which will include isolation rooms, and provide faster diagnostic information to doctors by the use of state-of-the-art communication technologies.
Last week’s event at the Srour’s home raised over $250,000 and encouraged attendees to consider meaningful five-year pledges and gifts of appreciated stock and real estate, which are 100% deductible over five or six years for 100% of their value.
Co-hosted by Angela Khurdajian, Debra King and Sarah Skolnik of the Providence St. Joseph Foundation, those who gathered poolside as the Srours’ guests included longtime Burbank residents Tim and Paula Davis, media personalities Mario Lopez and Rick Dees, and actor Eric McCormack, best-known for his role as Will Truman in the NBC sitcom “Will & Grace.”
To learn more about the fundraising campaign, upcoming events, the work of the foundation and committee, how you can become involved and donate or to take a tour of the current emergency facilities and see what is planned, call (818) 847-4673.
DAVID LAURELL may be reached by email at dlaurell@aol.com or (818) 563-1007.
