Fund drives move forward
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By ROD STETZER mailto:rod.stetzer@lee.net
Monday, January 14, 2008 10:05 AM CST
Bobbi Giles sees a way to provide a faster response to patients in the emergency room of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls, while giving patients more privacy.
Mike Jordan sees a way to continue the heritage of a summer fair in Chippewa Falls, while boosting tourism to the area.
Now they are both turning the public to achieve those goals.
About $3.4 million of a planned $4 million needed to revamp the hospital’s emergency room in 2009 has been raised, said Giles, who is the hospital’s director of development. “We are at just exactly where we thought we would be at this point,” she said.
Much of the money raised in pledges and in cash have come from people who use the hospital every day and from area foundations. “Now we go to the community,” she said.
That’s the same place the Chippewa Foundation will be looking. The foundation, not to be confused with the Community Foundation of Chippewa County, bought the fairgrounds in October from Julius “Pinky” Lee and Jim Flanagan.
The Chippewa Foundation then set an $850,000 goal to finish paying for the fairgrounds.
“We’ve made very good progress,” said Jordan, treasurer of the foundation. So far, 90 percent of the goal has been met.
“We’ve had support from businesses. We’ve had support from individuals. We’ve had support from children. The agriculture community has been very supportive,” Jordan said.
Now the final 10 percent of the goal needs to be raised. “Our second (and final) payment is due at the end of March,” Jordan said.
The two campaigns are the latest in a number of fundraising campaigns locally. Last year, a $2 million campaign paid for the revamping of Dorais Field in Chippewa Falls.
Giles is sensitive to that.
“We know that this community has experienced a lot of campaigns over the last couple of years,” she said.
But expanding the hospital’s emergency room from 5,000 to 13,000 square feet will benefit patients, she said.
“Your wait time will more than likely be much less than it is right now,” Giles said.
She said a mother with a child with a condition that wasn’t life threatening had to wait more than hour before the child could be treated.
With more rooms and more space, hospital personnel would have been able to see the child in 15 minutes, Giles estimated.
With the expansion, the hospital will have seven rooms devoted to holding patients with non-life threatening conditions. Plus, she said, the added rooms will give patients the added privacy they want.
The expansion is part of a larger hospital plan to for renovation, expected to take place in the fall of 2009.
The expansion Jordan would like to see is a boost to the city’s tourism with increased use of the fairgrounds.
One of the growth areas for the fairgrounds is in off-season use, he said. Everything from family reunions, to weddings to large, major events are possible.
“We want to see it used,” he said.
Also important is continuing the tradition of the summer fair, which will reach its 111th year in July. Both Lee and Flanagan have agreed to run the fair this summer.
“A search is currently underway for a fairgrounds manager,” Jordan said. That search is being conducted by the Fair Association Board, headed by Chuck Frenette.
All of the entertainment acts are set for the fair, Jordan said.
“The show goes on,” he said.
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