The Texas County Memorial Hospital Healthcare Foundation has raised $2.8 million toward the $3.2 million Care for Your Future capital campaign goal to build a tornado safe room and a new surgery department at TCMH.
Healthcare foundation board members and Care for Your Future steering committee members continue to work to raise the remaining $406,000 needed to complete the goal of the project.
“We hope to close the gap in our fundraising in the next few weeks,” said Jay Gentry, director of the TCMH Healthcare Foundation. “We have received one time gifts from some donors, and we have received three- to five-year pledges from donors.”
Gentry is working with McCarty Signs in Houston for donor recognition that will be displayed in a public area in the new construction. Donor names will be listed on special signage.
Donors that donated at certain levels to receive a naming opportunity in the new construction will have plaques posted beside patient rooms and other areas they selected to name based on the giving level.
“This is the first time TCMH has offered specific naming opportunities within in the hospital for donors,” Gentry said.
The Care for Your Future campaign provided donors the opportunity to receive recognition with naming opportunities throughout all of the TCMH construction projects which include patient rooms, meeting rooms, specific departments and the new medical surgical patient tower. The funds raised by the healthcare foundation are designated for the tornado safe room and surgery department, but the current new construction offers more opportunities for naming and for public display of donor names.
“We believe area community members will take special pride in seeing their name or the name of a loved one memorialized forever in the hospital,” Gentry said.
In addition to the funds donated to the project by donors and to the grant funds for the project, the TCMH Healthcare Foundation board members recently agreed to pledge $75,000 to the project over the next three years.
“Since its inception, the healthcare foundation has focused on raising funds to benefit the healthcare needs of the children, women and men of Texas County and the surrounding area,” said Conway Hawn, chair of the TCMH Healthcare Foundation.
According to Hawn, some of the funds raised by the foundation are set aside in special scholarship and endowment funds. Additionally, it oversees the funds raised by TCMH Hospice of Care.
“We are utilizing some of the general funds raised by the healthcare foundation over the past seven years to support Care for Your Future and the hospital’s goal of creating all new patient care areas in the hospital beginning in 2013,” Hawn said.
Wes Murray, chief executive officer at TCMH, praised the efforts of the foundation.
“The healthcare foundation and the capital campaign steering committee has provided the leadership needed to raise the funds we need to move forward in reaching our strategic goal of providing all new patient care areas at TCMH,” Murray said.
Murray explained that rather than ask for tax support, the foundation launched the Care for Your Future campaign.
“We asked our community to help us raise money for the hospital by giving on their own,” Murray said. “Every dollar that has been given is an investment in our county, the hospital and the people of this area. Every dollar given will stay here to benefit our community, and we hope people can connect with that purpose.”
The TCMH board of trustees recently voted to proceed with obtaining bids for the construction of the tornado safe room and the surgery department. The plans for the tornado safe room have also been submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Association for approval. FEMA provided a portion of the funds to build the tornado safe room.
TCMH is planning a public grand opening that will allow donors and area residents to see the new portions of the hospital as well as the donor recognition wall. A date for that event has not yet been determined.
For additional information about the capital campaign, contact Gentry at 417-967-1377 or jgentry@tcmh.org.