The capital campaign for a new cancer center was kicked off with a big boot at the annual benefit wine gala hosted by Northern Montana Health Care Foundation earlier this month.
About $300,000 was raised at the November 4th Wine Gala, sponsored annually by Northern Montana Health Care Foundation to raise funds for a special project designated by the Foundation’s board of directors. This year and next year, the Foundation’s fundraising will go toward the Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center, for which plans were announced by Northern Montana Hospital and Benefis Healthcare in Great Falls in early October.
More than 300 people attended the Gala. Ticket sales, auction sales and individual donations raised $50,000 that evening.
The Foundation’s Director, Christen Obresley, took the stage early in the evening to announce that the employee-owned Sletten Construction Companies of Great Falls, who will be the general contractor for the cancer center, kicked off the capital campaign with a generous contribution of $250,000. Representatives from Sletten, including Mr. and Mrs. Bob Sletten and Erik Sletten, President/CEO; Benefis Healthcare including President/CEO John Goodnow; and Sletten Cancer Institute including Dr. Grant Harrer who will be the medical director at the Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center, were on hand at the Gala.
The Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center, expected to be completed in early 2008, will be affiliated with and similar in look and mind/body/spirit treatment philosophy to the Sletten Cancer Institute in Great Falls, which is hailed as the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art cancer treatment facility in Montana.
With ground to be broken in early 2007, the 10,000-square-foot facility will be located on the Northern Montana Hospital campus, to the west of Northern Montana Medical Group-West clinic. It will house its own linear accelerator, which will be identical to the two at the Sletten Institute in Great Falls and which is used for radiation therapy treatments. Additionally, medical oncology services will be provided, as will satellite programs and services from Great Falls such as a resource/information center, a healing environment (providing cancer care to treat the patient’s mind, body and spirit), and an appearance center with wigs and prostheses. While the Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center will provide many of the same therapies that Sletten Cancer Institute in Great Falls does, it’s Havre location will provide Hi-Line patients the opportunity to drive much shorter distances for treatment.
David Leeds and Lynn Hamilton of Havre are the co-chairs for the NMHC Foundation Capital Campaign. |
