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DHMC Development

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Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
— Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

A broad base of support

By Katharine Fisher Britton

Ilike to tell people," says Marty Candon, president of the 30- member board of the Friends of the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD), "that if it weren't for the Friends of CHaD and QLLA [the Quechee Lakes Landowner's Association] Charities, this floor would look exactly like the one below it." She's referring to the fact that the CHaD outpatient clinic in DHMC's brand new Doctors' Office Building looks like no other floor—with brightly-colored fish hanging from the ceiling, whimsical floor designs, frog princes carved into the woodwork, and interactive science exhibits on loan from the Montshire Museum in the waiting areas.

The Friends of CHaD and QLLA are only two examples of the kind of community-based support that Dartmouth- Hitchcock benefits from. QLLA was the inspiration of Ginny and Tom Lane. Literally hundreds of community members, explains Lorraine Guile, president of QLLA Charities, have volunteered to help organize the group's annual golf event, now called the CHaD Classic, since its inception in the mid-1980s. The volunteers donate their time, their money, and their ingenuity. "We raised $10,000 on golf carts alone this year," Guile notes with pride, and Quechee landowners are out volunteering on the two courses all day during the tournament.

The Friends of CHaD and of NCCC are hard-working, long-standing ambassadors to the community, and vice versa.

In its early years, QLLA gave the proceeds of its tournament to the intensive care nursery and pediatric oncology at DHMC. In the mid-'90s, DHMC started a campaign to construct a new Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and QLLA made a threeyear, $100,000 commitment to the project. The group next provided start-up funds for CHaD's PainFree program. For the past three years, QLLA has provided the bulk of the funding—nearly $300,000—needed to build the CHaD outpatient center. And this year's CHaD Classic, cochaired by Sharin Luti and Nina Kurtz, raised more than $100,000—putting the group's total giving over $1 million.

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Funds raised by the Friends of CHaD make possible amenities like those pictured above.

Says Sharon Brown, CHaD's director of community relations, "It's the partnership, that feeling of being in it together, that's been an important part of both their continued interest and investment and our being so fortunate to have such an incredibly committed, generous community around us."

The Friends of CHaD, which organizes a host of fund-raising events, held its first official meeting in 1996. The group runs these events with some staff support from Brown and her colleagues. But they're basically "in-community" events, Brown asserts. "Ninety-five percent of what happens is through their hard work. They have become the most amazing group of people I've ever had the pleasure and awe of working with."

The feeling is mutual. Says Candon, "Sharon Brown and her staff have more energy, put in more hours, and do more work for those kids and that hospital than I can ever imagine doing." Candon, who is the fourth president of the Friends of CHaD since the group's founding, can't remember exactly how long she's served on the board, is in no hurry to step down, and seems unfazed by the number of volunteer hours the position calls for. "Most of the people can't remember how long they've been on the board," she notes. "To me, that's a good sign."

A major Friends of CHaD event is the annual Ski and Ride Challenge. Brown cites it as a characteristic Friends event in that it involves a wonderful network of people doing something they love, with a fundraising component added on. "The fund-raising is very important," Brown emphasizes. "It's providing resources that are critical to our being able to transform medicine in the world of pediatrics. It really has allowed us to develop as a children's hospital in a way that we wouldn't have been able to do, providing resources to support services that aren't supported by fees, or supplementing services that otherwise we would be hard pressed to offer." For example, a portion of the proceeds from the Ski and Ride Challenge go to the Injury Prevention Program. "But," she asserts, "it's about fun, above all else."

DHMC has another hard-working, long-standing Friends group: The Friends of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC). Jean Brown, executive director of the Friends of NCCC (and no relation to Sharon Brown), describes the 15 members of her board as ambassadors to the community from the Cancer Center, and vice versa. "It's a really exciting time to be associated with the Cancer Center," explains Marty Van Oot, president of the Friends of NCCC. "The research is tremendously exciting for any of us who've lost a friend to cancer," she adds, and Dr. Mark Israel, the current director of the Cancer Center, "is so dynamic."

"Our major fund-raising event," Van Oot says, "and one we work very hard on, is the annual Prouty Bike Ride and Fitness


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