It was also an important time in the growth of the parish, according to Greg Pellegrini, who served on the foundation board from 2012 to 2020.
“The founding members had tremendous vision and were able to found an organization with the goal of enhancing healthcare in St. Tammany,” Pellegrini said. “It’s one of the most important aspects of the quality of life in our area, and those founders saw the growth that was happening in St. Tammany and the need to grow the hospital.”
And it has, indeed, grown. As it has, the foundation has grown with it.
Current foundation Executive Director Nicole Suhre points, for example, to the foundation’s first capital campaign in 2012, which set an ambitious goal of raising $3 million to help fund the hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Department. With Pellegrini steering it, that campaign was successful, and St. Tammany Health System’s Covington hospital is now the only one in the region with a pediatric-specific ER.
“That was a huge win for us as a foundation,” Suhre said. “It really felt like we had taken things to the next level.”
It’s not just the big things, though. One of Pellegrini’s favorite initiatives is the foundation’s “Little Grant, Big Impact” program, through which hospital departments can apply for funds to purchase a piece of equipment or some type of patient-related item to help them better do their healing work.
“It could be a new chair in the infusion suite, a laptop in the ED – things you would never think of but which make their life easier,” he said.
Suhre is also enormously proud of the foundation’s Healing Arts Initiative, which, inspired by the positive impact of the arts on the healing process, has over the years resulted in the installation of art of all varieties throughout the health system’s facilities, from paintings to sculptures to aquariums to the player piano in the hospital lobby.
Without the work and vision of that first foundation board, she said, none of it would have been possible.
“Our fledgling foundation was blessed to have behind it the most influential and community-minded volunteers to serve as ambassadors for its efforts, creative and innovative leadership and skilled staff, all working together to drive its mission,” Suhre said. “Donors were not hard to find, and as the hospital expanded and evolved, more and more community members stepped up to support its growth.”
While the scope of the foundation’s work has grown over the years as new members have come on board, its focus really hasn’t.
For his part, Pellegrini doesn’t see that changing.
“The foundation has as its sole goal and sole mission to support the hospital by enhancing the care and quality of life in St. Tammany Parish,” he said. “And that will never go away.”