Healthcare Funds Established To Benefit Area Residents
Two community foundations will manage the $3 million funds
Ayer, Massachusetts (Friday, June 23, 2006) - Capping the sale of the former nonprofit Deaconess-Nashoba Hospital to the for-profit Essent Healthcare in 2003, The Nashoba Community Hospital Corporation announced the creation of two healthcare funds, with more than $3 million in total assets, that will benefit local residents.
Two local community foundations, the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts and the Greater Lowell Community Foundation, will manage the endowments - the Nashoba Valley Community Health Care Fund and the Nashoba Valley Professional Health Care Education Fund, which came from existing endowments and the net proceeds from the sale of the 41-bed hospital, now called Nashoba Valley Medical Center.
“We are pleased that this fund will allow us to continue our goal of extending good healthcare to the community,” commented Edward H. Strachan, president of The Nashoba Community Hospital Corporation.
The purpose of the funds is to provide annual distributions to nonprofit organizations, municipalities and other agencies in order to advance the community health of residents in thirteen communities originally served by the hospital, which include Ashby, Ayer, Bolton, Dunstable, Groton, Harvard, Lancaster, Littleton, Lunenburg, Pepperell, Shirley, Townsend and Westford.
It is anticipated that the funds will generate approximately $150,000 annually in grants based on the current fund balance and spending guidelines of the two foundations.
In a unique arrangement, the hospital trustees decided to use two community foundations to manage the distribution of the funds. The Lowell-based foundation, with $14 million in assets, and the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts, with over $10 million in assets, will both service portions of the former hospital’s service territory. Between the two foundations they have made approximately $1.2 million in grants to the greater Nashoba Valley region since 1997.
The foundations will equally divide the money and establish a joint advisory committee, which will make recommendations to both foundations on healthcare initiatives that need to be addressed in the community.
“It appears that this is the first time two community foundations will coordinate their distribution efforts to better serve the region,” noted Thomas F. Bagley, chairman of the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts.
- Continued -According to Bagley and George Duncan, president of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation, the goal is to establish a joint advisory committee by the fall of 2006. It is anticipated that the first round of grants will be made this year.
Strachan said 90% of the annual income from the funds will support the general purposes of community health care with areas of focus in health education of the general public, hospice care, home health care and long term care services, with the remaining ten percent supporting professional education for employees of health care facilities, which includes nurses and technicians.
“The two new community health funds offer a powerful opportunity for Nashoba Valley residents, businesses and municipalities to further improve the region’s community health by contributing to these two new funds,” noted Kronberg.
