February 26, 2010

Local women create giving circle, distribute over $35,000 in healthcare grants

Seventy-four women pooled their passion, skills and money recently to help address healthcare issues facing community members.

The Women's Legacy Circle is an outgrowth of the Women & Philanthropy initiative of The Carle Development Foundation. It combines the resources and talents of local women to resolve healthcare needs by funding programs supported by Carle Foundation Hospital that offer added value to our community.

"We can do so much more together than individually," explains Donna Greene, chair of the Women's Legacy Circle and president of Busey Wealth Management. "Our goal is to focus on the needs affecting our neighbors, our communities and our own families."

According to Greene, the idea to create a giving circle surfaced last summer. Since then, members have shared their charitable dollars, solicited funding proposals, and most recently reviewed 22 proposals before awarding $35,117 in charitable funds to the following four projects:

  • Community Dental Program will receive $11,000 to provide dental care to 100 people who previously had no access through a partnership with Parkland Dental Program, Smile Healthy, United Way and Frances Nelson Health Center.
  • An Asthma Education Program in partnership with Frances Nelson Health Center will receive $6,567 to educate and support adults struggling with asthma.
  • Nursing Education at Carle Foundation Hospital will receive $4,100 to purchase training mannequins giving nurses the resources needed for ongoing, hands-on training.
  • Women's Health in Physical Therapy will receive $13,450 to offer women new resources to deal with the highly personal and difficult challenges of pelvic dysfunction and incontinence.

"Awarding these grants is a testimony to the ability of women to get things done," Greene continues. "It's exciting to think that we've started an initiative that has the potential to affect lives now and into the future."

Shortly after the Women's Legacy Circle voted on the projects to receive funding, a member stepped forward and anonymously donated the necessary funding for a fifth project: the Neonatal Resuscitation Program, which provides resources to train more than 100 healthcare providers locally and within our region to resuscitate newborns in distress.

To join the Circle, women must commit to a $500 annual gift to The Carle Development Foundation. Members meet three times a year, review funding requests, and select projects to fund through a voting process. "We're concerned women who want to make a difference and change lives," Greene says. For more information, please call The Carle Development Foundation at (217) 383-3021.