The Center for Breast Wellness at Griffin Hospital is now “The Hewitt Center for Breast Wellness.” The Shelton-based Hewitt Foundation’s name will soon adorn the center by virtue of its $250,000 naming gift to the hospital’s ongoing Campaign for Breast Wellness.
The campaign, which kicked off last year with a goal of raising $1 million, has now raised almost $750,000 thanks to the addition of this naming gift from the Hewitt Foundation, which will be disbursed over the next three years.
The Foundation’s latest gift follows a $750,000 gift given in 2007 that named the Hewitt Ambulatory Care Pavilion, which houses the Hewitt Center for Breast Wellness on its Ground Floor.
The Hewitt Pavilion adjoins the Center for Cancer Care at Griffin Hospital at 350 Seymour Avenue in Derby, and houses the offices of General & Laparoscopic Surgical Associates, also on the Ground Floor, Griffin Hospital’s Special Procedures Unit, on the First Floor, and the hospital’s Rehabilitation Services and Cardiac Rehabilitation Departments, on the Pavilion’s Second Floor.
“We are extremely grateful for these two significant naming gifts from the Hewitt Foundation,” said Patrick Charmel, Griffin Hospital President and CEO. “Since it opened in January 2011, The Hewitt Center for Breast Wellness has raised the level of breast care Griffin Hospital is able to provide, and has set a new standard for the delivery of comprehensive breast wellness and health care services in a comfortable and supportive environment by a remarkable team of highly skilled and compassionate professionals.”
“The center will serve as a lasting legacy to the Hewitt Organization’s history of providing healthcare in our community,” Charmel said.
The Hewitt Foundation was established in 2004 after the Hewitt Organization sold its three properties in Shelton: The Flora and Mary Hewitt Memorial Hospital, Gardner Heights convalescent home, and Shelton Lakes Residence & Health Center. The proceeds of the sale were used to establish a Foundation, whose basic mission is to fund services for the elderly and health care, according to Hewitt Foundation Treasurer Harry DiAdamo.
DiAdamo, who served as administrator of the Hewitt Memorial Hospital from 1972 to mid-1984, said the Foundation is a small organization that focuses its financial support on Valley agencies. “We do not seek publicity,” he said. “The goal is to keep alive the Hewitt Hospital’s origins.”
Echoing that sentiment was Hewitt Foundation President Pat Carey, a former member of the Hewitt Memorial Hospital Board of Directors, who said funding health care agencies is part of Hewitt’s mission statement. “The Foundation’s board tries “to be pretty picky (about allocating funding) where it will do the most good,” he said.
The Hewitt Foundation also supports Training, Education, and Manpower Inc.’s Meals on Wheels elderly nutrition program, as well as Birmingham Group Health Services’ CHERISH program, which works to fight abuse of the elderly.
Both Carey and DiAdamo have been touched personally by breast cancer, and talk openly about the fact their wives are breast cancer survivors. “Since both of our wives have had breast cancer, this was a no-brainer,” Carey said, adding that the Foundation’s board members “wanted to keep the Hewitt name in the Valley” by naming the Center for Breast Wellness at Griffin Hospital.
DiAdamo agrees. “Griffin has developed a wonderful, first-class environment. The Foundation wants to support them,” he said.
As the Campaign for Breast Wellness nears its $1 million goal, individual naming opportunities still exist, according to Cornelia Evans, Executive Director of the Griffin Hospital Development Fund.
“We continue to welcome individual and community support of the campaign,” she said. “Several upcoming fund-raising events are planned to help us reach our goal, including the 2nd Annual “Housy One-Miler Swim on Aug. 14 and the “Valley Goes Pink” celebration that will take place throughout October, and several other events throughout the community.”
For more information on supporting the Campaign for Breast Wellness, either through an individual gift or by participating in or supporting a campaign-related event, visit the hospital’s website at www.griffinhealth.org or call the Griffin Hospital Development Fund at 203-732-7504.
