Employee-Driven Goodwill Efforts
Samaritan supports its employees’ efforts to do good in the community by allowing work time to be used for selected charitable projects. Samaritan often supports these efforts by providing vehicles for hauling or transportation, donating printing services, and generally sharing its resources for these purposes. Here are a few examples of such community charity:
Tree of Giving
Through a program variously called the “Tree of Giving” or “The Tree of Love,” SHS valley hospital employees provide Christmas gifts each year for needy families.
A few weeks before Christmas, employees at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center and Samaritan Albany General and Samaritan Lebanon Community hospitals put up a holiday tree at their particular hospital and decorate it with paper ornaments. Each ornament is labeled with a number corresponding to a local needy family and the ages of each family member.
Each hospital department then adopts one of the families and purchases gifts, and sometimes food, for the family. All items are gift-wrapped, stored temporarily at the participating hospital, and then delivered to a local social service agency, which then distributes the gifts.
SHS employee participation in this program is enthusiastic and abundant. Literally truckloads of gifts are distributed each year; and in employee surveys, this program rates among the top annual employee activities.
Food and Toy Drive
During the holiday season, the Laboratory Department at Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital sponsors a food and toy drive to benefit the Lincoln County Food Bank. People in the community who would like to participate can bring three cans of food or a new toy in exchange for a free total cholesterol screening. The food and toy drive provides an opportunity to help needy families in the community.
Employee Caring Campaign
Every year, the employees of SHS facilities in the valley and on the coast participate in the Samaritan Employee Caring Campaign, through which they donate funds to their own hospital foundations and to communities’ United Way campaigns.
In 2004, for example, SHS employees donated more than $210,000. A little more than $180,000 went to individual hospital foundations, which will use the money to serve patients’ needs at their respective hospitals. More than $30,000 went to United Way programs that will serve the needy in communities throughout the SHS service area.
SHS Food Drive
During the month of April, the employees of Samaritan Health Services sponsor a food drive to benefit area food kitchens and pantries. Employees of SHS hospitals and physician clinics partake of a little friendly competition to see which site will collect the most food. During the 2007 drive, SHS raised more than 55,000 pounds of food.
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