The Power of Philanthropy: Fall 2023
Dear Friends, Greetings! On behalf of the entire team here in the Office of Philanthropy, I would like to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to YOU for your thoughtful nature, desire to help others in need and willingness to give generously through ChristianaCare.
Philanthropy comes in many shapes, sizes and forms — and in this issue we are highlighting just a few examples of the power of your philanthropy at work.
Thank you for making these lifechanging opportunities possible and for making such a positive difference in your community!
With gratitude,
Newly Renovated Maternal & Infant Center at Cecil County Campus
The Auxiliary of Union Hospital truly embodies the model of philanthropy – as volunteers you have given your time and talents selflessly to benefit the welfare of others by raising money for new programs, renovating buildings, providing clothing for patients and families in need, and selling the most unique items in the gift shop. Your latest accomplishment? Raising $100,000 to renovate the Maternal & Infant Center, $10,000 to support behavioral health initiatives and $10,000 to renovate the Breast Health Center. Your dedication, thoughtfulness, boundless energy and leadership are inspiring and impressive – thank you for your service as volunteers!
Junior Board of ChristianaCare Raised $85,000 to Support Pediatric Care Center
Dia Williams Adams, MPA Vice President of Philanthropy
On April 26, 2023, the Junior Board of ChristianaCare held its annual fundraiser, JB Cause, at the Newark Campus featuring a memorable evening of shopping, music, raffles, light bites and more. Proceeds from the event, which totaled $85,000, benefitted the Pediatric Care Center, which meets the unique health care needs of children and adolescents.
“Philanthropic support of the Pediatric Care Center through JB Cause allows us to continuously optimize our patients’ and families’ experiences as we improve care access and expand care services for the ChristianaCare pediatric community. Our gratitude and the impact of your support are truly immeasurable!”
Megan
Photo #1: Auxiliary of Union Hospital presents the Office of Philanthropy with generous donation during its June 13th luncheon.
Photo #2: The Auxiliary of Union Hospital also operates the Good as New Gift Shop.
Mickley, M.D., MBA, FAACP, FACEP Director, Pediatric Cancer Center
From left to right: Bettina Tweardy Riveros, Esq., ChristianaCare Chief Public Affairs Officer and Chief Health Equity Officer; Diane Thomas, Junior Board 3rd Vice President – External Affairs; Megan Mickley, M.D., ChristianaCare Pediatric Emergency Medicine; and Joshua Gorman – Zolochik, ChristianaCare Nurse Manager.
NON PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID WILMINGTON DE PERMIT NO. 357
MISSION ChristianaCare’s mission is to serve our neighbors as expert, caring partners in their health. We do this by creating innovative, effective, affordable, and equitable systems of care that our neighbors value.
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Presentation
Delaware Subaru Paves the Road for a Bright Future in Women’s and Children’s Health
As part of its annual Share the Love® event, Delaware Subaru generously donates $250 from the sale of each new Subaru during the months of November – February to various local nonprofits. For the past 9 years, Delaware Subaru has supported various initiatives at ChristianaCare—from special events and the construction of the new Center for Women’s and Children’s Health to meeting the special needs of families receiving care in the NICU—and this year was no exception.
Several members of the Delaware Subaru’s leadership team, Lee Asher, general manager; Andy Rash, sales manager; and Greg Ritter, service director recently visited the Newark Campus to present a generous donation of $11,465 in proceeds from the dealership’s Fall 2022 Share the Love® event, which will continue to support patient care and equipment purchases in the NICU.
“On behalf of the entire ChristianaCare family and the patients we serve, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Michael Uffner, ChristianaCare Council of Advisors member, and his entire team at Delaware Subaru for their ongoing partnership and generous gift to ChristianaCare supporting the Center for Women and Children’s Health. As a result of your kind and thoughtful support, babies will have a bright start full of hope,” said Dia Williams Adams,
Heart to Heart
On June 15th, members of the Center for Heart and Vascular Health Leadership Council led by Dr. Kirk Garratt, hosted an event at the home of Brad du Pont. Dr. Garratt opened remarks by presenting the current and future state of Heart Failure in Delaware while Dr. Sourin Banerji, Medical Director of Advanced Heart Failure/ VAD, educated guests about ChristianaCare’s expertise in LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Devices). Following remarks guests heard grateful patient Michael Bayard’s incredible LVAD success story.
ChristianaCare Forms Workforce Development Partnership with JPMorgan Chase
vice president of philanthropy at ChristianaCare.
“It is especially meaningful to us to provide support this year. It is critically important to our community’s well-being to have a world class Women’s and Children’s health program. We hope our support of ChristianaCare over the years benefits all our citizens in the region,” said Michael Uffner, president, chairman and CEO at Delaware Subaru and Auto Team Delaware.
2023 ChristianaCare Golf Classic
A special thank you to all of our ChristianaCare Golf Classic enthusiasts, players, sponsors, and volunteers for joining us at DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, DE on May 1, 2023. Thanks to your generous support the event raised more than $200,000 in support of various patient care initiatives. And congratulations to Ernst & Young for winning the 2023 ChristianaCare Sponsors Cup!
ACE SPONSORS
A Family’s Gratitude for A Son’s Care
Out of the blue, an otherwise healthy child collapses. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare and one Michael and Cricket Browne know all too well. On an otherwise ordinary evening in 2022, their then 18-year-old son Kayden fell to the ground suddenly.
A senior in high school with one semester left to go before graduating, he was working at Patriots Glen National Golf Club, a Maryland club Michael and Cricket own.
“Kayden complained of a headache and then just crumpled to the ground,” said Michael, a prominent business leader. “I was a paramedic for 20 years and knew right away it was bad. I called an ambulance and his mom — she was a nurse in a previous career and immediately understood the severity of the situation.”
The EMTs took Kayden directly to Christiana Hospital, where he would remain for the next three months. He’d suffered a very rare type of brain bleed — arteriovenous malformation — that required removal of part of his skull.
“Everything changed,” remembers Michael.
“Kayden was in the hospital for 89 days and a medically induced coma for part of the time. He had many surgeries and some setbacks, but he beat the odds and survived. He’s a strong, amazing kid who pushed through hospitalization at Christiana Hospital and months of rehab at Wilmington Hospital.”
Today, Kayden continues to recover. He graduated from high school and is now working full time with Michael’s businesses. Recently, doctors told him he may someday play baseball
again – the best news ever for a starting catcher who’s been sidelined for more than a year.
To show their deep gratitude for the many people who cared for Kayden at ChristianaCare, the Browne’s are hosting the 2024 ChristianaCare Golf Classic at Patriots Glen. The event will raise money for Union Hospital.
“Every person we’ve come into contact with at ChristianaCare has been truly, truly kind and compassionate,” said Michael. “We were fortunate to meet a lot of the people who cared for Kayden and did so much to make all of us feel comfortable. I’ll never forget it and can never fully thank them for everything. The golf outing is a start!”
Gifts to ChristianaCare’s Annual Fund from generous donors – like you – enable the health system to respond quickly to unanticipated challenges, pursue innovative technologies and launch new programs as we continue to provide day-to-day services.
ChristianaCare is excited to announce it has received a generous $100,000 grant award from JPMorgan Chase. The grant will enable ChristianaCare to strengthen its longstanding commitment to building a diverse and inclusive workforce by launching a new youth employment program: Health Impacts. Health Impacts is a year-long pilot program designed to connect youth (ages 16-18) from low-to-moderate income households within the Greater Wilmington area to career opportunities and pathways in health care with an intensive training program during the summer months and a 9-month paid internship culminating with permanent employment at ChristianaCare. Special thanks to JPMorgan Chase for making this life-changing opportunity possible!
Expansion of Health Literacy Partnership
ChristianaCare is excited to announce it has received a generous $80,000 grant award from @Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Delaware’s BluePrints for the Community program managed by the Delaware Community Foundation. The grant will enable ChristianaCare to continue leading the Health Literacy Council of Delaware and the important work improving best practice for health professionals and advocating for systems that make health care easier for patients to understand. This program will be hosted by the Health Literacy Council of Delaware and supported by ChristianaCare, Delaware Division of Public Health, and the University of Delaware’s Partnership for Healthy Communities.
If you would like to make a donation in honor of a department or program that is important and inspiring to you, please scan the QR code to visit giving.christianacare.org
A Gift of Knowledge
Joe Hullinger Jr. died at 43 years old from lung cancer. In the decade before his passing, he’d lost his parents to the disease — his mother to colon cancer and father to kidney cancer. Trained as an engineer, Joe was always curious about how things worked, and his family’s cancer history sparked an interest in genetics.
“Had he survived, Joe wanted to pursue genetic studies,” said Beth Embert, his wife. “After he passed, established a trust for the Hullinger family to participate in genetic studies.”
That was more than 20 years ago. Last year, Beth and the family decided to put the money to a more active use for the broader community. Because Joe had received excellent, comprehensive care at ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute, the family decided to make a $10,000 philanthropic investment in its research program. It gifted the money to the cancer center’s Cawley Center for Translational Cancer Research.
“Helen F. Graham Cancer Center was a Godsend for us,” said Beth. “The center opened when Joe was already undergoing treatment. Until then, we had to run around to different specialists and locations for care. When the center opened, all of Joe’s care was under one roof, in one location, and it meant a world of difference.”
Beth knew ChristianaCare would steward the family’s gift, investing it in research to benefit other families facing cancer diagnoses.
“Joe hoped future generations of people with cancer would have simpler, less invasive treatments,” said Beth. “He would be amazed to see the advancements in the last 20 years. can only imagine the transformations to come, and know ChristianaCare will lead them.”
“Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Delaware and Highmark Health Options are actively engaged with statewide literacy improvement efforts and are pleased to support the Health Literacy Council of Delaware. By ensuring Delawareans have the tools and resources they need to understand their health information, while simultaneously making inclusive accommodations as health care organizations, we can promote better health decisions and ultimately improve health outcomes,” said Nick Moriello, president of Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Delaware.
Food is Medicine: A Pathway to Healthier Pregnancy Outcomes
ChristianaCare is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a $50,000 grant from The Edna G. Kynett Memorial Foundation to implement a comprehensive “Food is Medicine” pilot program. The program will help support pregnant women and their family members with nine months of high-quality groceries high in micronutrients critical for a healthy pregnancy. The food provided will be the equivalent of about 10 meals per person and will be delivered to participants’ homes weekly. In addition, ChristianaCare will provide culinary equipment, skills training, culturally relevant recipes as well as a team of community health workers, registered dieticians, and health coaches to conduct nutrition assessments, share educational resources and provide ongoing support for dietary behavior changes and achieving goals for a healthier pregnancy.
Subaru Share the Love® Check
From left to right: Katie Falkowski, advertising liaison, Viamark Advertising; Dia Williams Adams, MPA, vice president of Philanthropy, ChristianaCare; Lauri Littleton, DNP, RN-BC, NE-BC, vice president of Patient Care Services, ChristianaCare; Lee Asher, Delaware Subaru general manager; Matthew Hoffman, M.D., MPH, chair of the Department of OB-GYN, ChristianaCare; Greg Ritter, Delaware Subaru service director; and Andy Rash, Delaware Subaru sales manager.
Delle Donne PATHS CONDOR SPONSORS Ernst & Young RCM&D EAGLE SPONSORS ChristianaCare-GoHealth Urgent Care Deloitte Consulting Wilmington Trust BIRDIE SPONSORS Anesthesia Services BlackRock ccsfundraising Grant Thornton PNC Financial Services Group Securitas Electronic Security Whiting-Turner Contracting Company BOGEY SPONSORS Canon Solutions Core BTS J.P. Morgan Securities Johnson & Johnson SCC-Soft Computer VARO HealthCare Workday Healthcare PATRON SPONSORS Crown Castle Fiber Aruba Network/CNI Assurance Media Bank of America Johnson Controls Security Solutions Lincoln Financial Group Optiv/Netskope LUNCH AND REFRESHMENT SPONSORS Alliance Technology Group/Extreme Networks Cassidy Painting Patricia Curtin HOLE-IN-ONE SPONSOR AutoTeam Delaware PRESENTING SPONSOR OC Reilly
Grateful Patient, Mr. Michael Bayard, reveals his LVAD to event guests.
Thank you for being a partner in health and making these projects possible!
OUR PARTNERSHIPS
From left to right: Bernadette Yeager, Catherine Sullivan, Beth Hullinger Embert, and Nicholas Petrelli, M.D., FACS
