St. Bernard Hospital will host its Second Annual fundraiser titled St. Bernard Hospital Gala 2017: A Work of Heart on Saturday, September 30, 2017. The gala will be held in the Regency Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place Hotel, 2233 S. Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive, from 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 midnight.
Val Warner, the popular co-host of ABC7’s Emmy Award-winning afternoon show Windy City LIVE, will serve as the evening’s mistress of ceremonies. Ms. Warner is returning for the second year as St. Bernard Hospital raises funds to support the expansion of essential oral health care services, especially for children and young adults with special needs.
Tim King – founder, president and CEO of Urban Prep Academies – will be presented the State Representative Esther Golar Heart of the Community Award for his outstanding support of education. Mr. King founded and operates a network of public college-prep schools in Chicago, including the nation’s first all-male charter high school. The nonprofit organization is aimed at promoting college success. Urban Prep has received national acclaim for its annual 100 percent graduation rate and 100 percent admission rate to four-year colleges and universities. These student scholars are all African American males primarily from low-income families. The award is named in honor of the late State Representative Esther Golar who worked tirelessly on issues such as quality education, fair housing, and access to healthcare.
The evening will include a silent auction with items ranging from fine art to jewelry to tickets to popular sporting events and more. Following the dinner and program, the Gentlemen of Leisure Band will perform live as guests dance to one of Chicago’s most popular large bands. Gentlemen of Leisure is known for its musical range, performing all types of music from R&B to hip hop, to Motown, to today’s popular tunes and everything in between.
Charles Holland, president and CEO of St. Bernard Hospital, announced the major sponsors for the St. Bernard Hospital Gala 2017: A Work of Heart. “It is with much appreciation that St. Bernard Hospital publicly thanks Berglund Construction, our lead sponsor, along with Partners in Health and St. Bernard Hospital Medical Staff for their generous contributions to the gala. Because of partners like these whose leaders have ‘big hearts,’ St. Bernard can achieve improvements to better serve our patients.”
Located in the heart of Chicago’s Englewood community, St. Ber- nard is the last remaining hospital of four that once served Englewood and its surrounding communities. It is an essential safety-net, community hospital providing high-quality health care with respect, dignity and compassion for 113 years.
More than 81,000 people receive care from St. Bernard annually with nearly 75 percent being Medicaid recipients. Each year, the hospital provides over $6.5 million in charity care. St. Bernard is also the largest employer in the Englewood community. Throughout the years, the hospital has evolved alongside the community it serves, modernizing and adding to its facilities to keep pace with advances in medicine and the standard of care.
In 2016, St. Bernard opened a new, state-of-the-art Ambulatory Care Center (ACC) adjacent to the hospital. This three-story, $33 million, 70,000 square-foot health facility provides a variety of outpatient services that promote wellness and prevention to a large segment of the population that is low income, uninsured or underinsured.
Last year’s gala raised funds for the purchase of additional diagnostic equipment for the ACC. This year’s focus is the expansion of essential oral health care services, especially for children and young adults with special needs, in the ACC. The Dental Center serves patients from the immediate community, from other parts of the city and the tri-state area. Recognizing that good dental services are too often overlooked, the St. Bernard Dental Center fills an important void in the total care of patients.
For ticket information, contact LaWanda Holmes-Williams at 773-896-2623.
