Cancer Center closer to its mark

Jacqui Brown

The planned Integrated Cancer Center at Providence St. Joseph Medical

Center is $500,000 closer to being built after a donation from a

local philanthropist.

Angelo Mozilo, chairman and chief executive officer of Countrywide

Financial Corporation, and his wife, Phyllis, made the donation from

the Mozilo Family Foundation for a personal reason.

“Dr. Raul Mena has a very special place in the heart of the Mozilo

family,” Mozilo said. “Our contribution to the center is to help him

advance his work and efforts to lengthen the quality of life of those

less fortunate because he has done so much for so many -- including

our family.”

Mozilo said the inspiration for the donation came when he found

out they would be donating a wing to the doctor.

Mena, medical director of the cancer program at Providence St.

Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, is one of four co-chairs leading

the Excellence, Compassion and Healing capital campaign.

“The Mozilos are an amazing, wonderful, kind-hearted couple,” Mena

said. “As individuals, they’ve always been concerned with the

communities they live in and because of their successes they are very

generous.”

This new facility is something that Mena has been thinking about

since the ‘80s when he was the chief of staff at the center. He,

along with other doctors and medical staff, saw the need to provide a

more comprehensive care unit and spent a great deal of time trying to

push through offering more services.

Those efforts paid off when the Providence St. Joseph Foundation,

the fundraising arm of the Medical Center, came through with the

funding for the construction of the recently opened comprehensive

breast cancer center.

“It’s through people like the Mozilos this project will happen. I

believe the whole thing will be funded philanthropically because we

have so many corporations and companies who care and want to improve

their community,” Mena said.

Patients will have access to physicians, nutritional counselors,

therapists and a research library all under one roof in order to

provide a comprehensive approach to treatment, according to Mena.

This latest donation brings the total raised to $5.6 million, a

step closer to the $33.1 million needed to fund construction,

according to Richard Baker, board chair for the foundation. The

groundbreaking date has yet to be determined.

For more information on supporting cancer services or the

Providence Saint Joseph Foundation capital campaign, call 847-4673.