Joan Wargo

Meet the longtime force of nature when it comes to volunteering—and delivering the promise—for Boca Raton’s first hospital

Written by MARIE SPEED

Joan Wargo and her husband, the late Don Wargo, met in the early ‘50s in Miami, when Joan was a charge nurse and Don was a physician at Jackson Memorial. They moved to Boca in 1958, where Don established an OB-GYN practice in 1959 with offices in Boca Raton and Delray Beach. After the tragic 1962 poisoning deaths of two Boca children, Debra and Randall Drummond—with the closest hospital in Delray—Joan Wargo and a small group of Boca women helped found the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League, named after the children, to raise funds for Boca’s first hospital, known as the “miracle on Meadows Road” when it opened in 1967. Her husband was one of the 25 founding members of the medical staff of the then Boca Raton Community Hospital.

In the decades since, Joan Wargo has been an unwavering supporter of what is now Boca Raton Regional Hospital, and at 93, she’s still logging in hours. (“I have not stopped working; I just put in 10 the other day.”) To date, the official volunteer hours count is 35,000. And growing. Her other involvement in the community has included the Junior League, the Excalibur Society, Lynn University (raising money for scholarships), the Pioneer Club and the Historical Society. These days, she is Director Emeritus on the Boca Raton Regional Hospital Foundation board and is an emeritus member of the FAU Christine E. Lynn School of Nursing. And she has never missed a hospital ball. Not one.

ON HER PASSION FOR THE MEDICAL FIELD:

Number one, I have a passion for the patients. And number two, with Debbie-Rand, we raised a barrel of money for the hospital, and I loved working on the projects so we could contribute to Debbie-Rand.

WHAT SHE’S MOST PROUD OF:

In truth, my two sons. But I don’t know. I would guess the number of hours that I’ve worked, the money we raise for the School of Nursing. And Debbie-Rand raised a lot of money, and so has the Foundation. That I’ve been to every hospital ball in the past 60 years— I’ve been chairman of three of them, honorary chair of one, and co-chair of one.

HOW SHE HAS SEEN THE MEDICAL FIELD CHANGE

SINCE SHE FIRST HELPED LAUNCH THE HOSPITAL:

It’s unbelievable. We have gone partners with Baptist, and that was a great move. I don’t know how many doctors are on the staff now; I think it’s 700 and something. The hospital is always full. We have very good doctors, very good administrators; everybody at the hospital does a very good job. We have the Go Pink luncheon with 1,200-1,500 people there now; it also brings in a lot of money.

But the only reason we were able to get the medical care campus we have is because of the people who live in Boca who are very wealthy and very generous and very caring.

WHY SHE GIVES BACK:

It’s [been all about] benefiting the hospital and the community and the people of Boca Raton that need medical care. That was the initial thing when the two kids died; there was no medical facility here. And that’s all we’ve done. I wanted people to be taken care of. That’s what I want. I guess it’s whatever the lord put in me when I was born; I just enjoy helping people who need it.