Act Alive helps diabetes patients
Type 2 diabetes is one of the most serious diseases residents of east Linn County face, and lack of physical exercise is at its root. Exercise is one of the best ways to treat diabetes.
This is the idea behind Act Alive, an annual event that raises support for the Diabetes Fund at the Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation and also raises awareness for diabetes prevention in east Linn County. The mastermind behind Act Alive is Tim Hindmarsh, MD, a family physician with Sweet Home Family Medicine.
Here’s how Act Alive works: each summer on July 4, Dr. Hindmarsh challenges our local community to join him in a series of fun, competitive health activates such as trail walk along Cheadle Lake, a 20-mile bike ride through the east Linn County countryside, a five-kilometer run through the Cheadle Lake trail system, and more. Dr. Hindmarsh caps the event off by skydiving over Cheadle Lake and landing in the midst of the annual Star Spangled Celebration held at the lakeside park. Act Alive participants raise pledges and the foundation also partners with local businesses to support the event.
The result is more than $40,000 raised over the last five years. The funds are used to provide diabetes education scholarships to low-income east Linn residents, and other services to local diabetes patients.
Girod Scholarship pays dividends for east Linn County
Established in 1998, the Frank Girod, MD Medical Scholarship assists students from east Linn County who are pursuing careers in medicine. In 2009, the Girod Scholarship Committee of the Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation awarded an $8,000 scholarship to Ross Wopat, who will be a second-year medical student at Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
Since 1998, $125,000 has been given to 13 qualifying east Linn County residents enrolled in medical school. The scholarship is named in honor of Dr. Girod who died in 2001 at the age of 92, after an outstanding life of dedication to the community. As a primary care physician, he provided pediatric, obstetric, surgical and geriatric care in Linn County for almost 50 years.
Easton scholarship helps east Linn nursing students
The Lebanon Community Hospital (LCH) Foundation and Easton Scholarship Committee are pleased to announce that Courtney Schmidig has been named the 2009 Rachel Easton, RN, Scholarship winner. She will be a second-year student pursuing a bachelor of science degree in nursing at Oregon Health & Science University through Eastern Oregon University in La Grande.
Schmidig will receive a $1,000 scholarship toward her sophomore year of study. With an interest in trauma/critical care, she would like to continue her education to ultimately become a nurse practitioner. At the completion of her education, her current plans are to return to the Willamette Valley for employment. Schmidig is the daughter of Margie and Robert Schmidig of Scio.
The Easton Scholarship was established in December 2006 in memory of Rachel Easton, a longtime nurse at Samaritan’s Park Street Clinic in Lebanon, to assist east Linn County students who are seeking nursing education. The foundation coordinates the scholarship, on behalf of the scholarship committee. Since 2007, the committee has awarded $3,000 in total scholarships to three students.
The committee awards one $1,000 scholarship each year to a nursing student with a primary residence in either Brownsville, Cascadia, Crabtree, Crawfordsville, Foster, Halsey, Lacomb, Lebanon, Scio, Shedd, Sweet Home, Tangent or Waterloo. All applicants must currently be attending college and accepted into a nursing program, working toward a registered nursing degree, and they must provide a written statement of his/her goals and any community service involvement and an official transcript including Fall term grades.
For more information about the scholarship, or for an application for 2010, contact the foundation office at (541) 451-6303.
Matching fund improves care for patients
The Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation Matching Fund Policy supports employee-proposed projects designed to improve patient care or employee environment. The fund matches dollar-for-dollar the total amount of employee contributions to the foundation’s annual fall employee campaign. In 2009, employees donated more than $89,000 to the foundation.
“The foundation hopes that the Matching Fund for employee projects will both encourage and reward hospital employees in their financial support of the hospital,” said Bill Rauch, President of the foundation. “Their generosity over the years continues to allow the foundation to support projects that will enhance the quality of health care available to Linn County residents.”
The foundation funded 20 employee projects in 2009, including a saline resectoscope for gynecological surgeries; a new instrument dryer for the Surgery Department; and scholarships for low-income patients in east Linn County to receive Lifeline service.