Irving Healthcare Foundation celebrated its 35th “birthday” recently by announcing grants totaling more than $35 million. The fundraising agency was founded in 1977 to support nonprofit medical agencies that keep Irving’s residents healthy.
“The season of Thanksgiving is a perfect time to express our appreciation to the people of Irving for their generous support across more than three decades,” noted IHF President John Drake. “Our amazing volunteer board members through the years have made sure that administrative costs were kept low and that as much as possible of each gift dollar was used for the purposes the donors intended.”
The foundation’s primary recipient was Irving Community Hospital, which was renamed Baylor Medical Center at Irving in 1995 when the facility’s owner, the Irving Hospital Authority, hired Dallas’s Baylor Health Care System to manage the hospital through an operating lease. The 20-year lease agreement was so beneficial that the Authority and BHCS in 2010 voted to extend it 35 more years.
Since IHF’s inception, $29 million has been awarded to Baylor Medical Center at Irving to expand the emergency room twice, add a cancer center and an outpatient surgery center on the hospital’s campus and add a highly specialized cardiac treatment room.
Our Children’s House at Baylor-Irving, a specialized childcare and therapy center, was added as a beneficiary in 1999. IHF has raised and granted more than $5 million has been granted to help thousands of children who have medical and development needs be prepared for kindergarten. “Whether it’s learning to walk, to write, to speak or to eat, the staff at OCHI performs miracles in giving each child maximum ability,” Drake explained.
The Irving Interfaith Clinic was created in 2005 to provide medical and dental care uninsured, needy residents of Irving. The clinic has since relocated to the Baylor Irving campus and has increased visits by patients from 2,000 to 6,000 in only one year, thanks to space renovated through a donation from the Irving Hospital Authority. “Irving Interfaith Clinic provides mercy medical and dental care for folks who otherwise could not afford it. It’s not a replacement for an emergency room. It is a doctor’s office that works to keep patients healthy so they don’t have to rely on ERs for their care,” Drake added.
In 2008, IHF began raising funds for the Irving Dental Center and raised and granted $194,000. The same year IHF began raising funds to support the YMCA efforts to battle family obesity and has granted $36,000.
IHF each year celebrates a more than two–decades of support with the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Las Colinas. More than $2.4 million given by the Resort for cancer diagnosis and treatment had benefited tens of thousands of lives in Irving.
“Our founders did not want multiple fundraising offices competing for gift dollars for Irving’s medical charities. They were so visionary when they created Irving Healthcare Foundation to serve any nonprofit healthcare agency that wanted to be a partner. It really is extraordinary and efficient and, as a result of its good work, such a benefit to the health of our community”, said IHF’s current Chairman Brian Smith.
More information is available at www.healthyirving.org.
Hi, what are you looking for?
