Trinitas Regional Medical Center is eyeing Nov. 29, Giving Tuesday, to raise $50,000 in a single day to expand its behavioral health program.
This serves people who are both developmentally disabled and mentally ill, for whom progress can come in small steps. But Chief Development Officer Laura Ciraco tells the story of a mother who called her son and got a big surprise.
“He was saying, ‘I was watching George on TV,’ and the mother had asked, ‘Who’s George? What’s George?’ and he said George Stephanopoulos, and she was astounded,” said Ciraco. “She said, ‘My son is in his 60s and has never said so much to me before, and he can even say George Stephanopoulos now, we can even have a conversation now.”
Ciraco explained why it is so critical to raise this money.
“This is a difficult population to raise funds for because of the fact that this is not a home run story,” she said. “Developmentally disabled mentally ill patients don’t go on to college, they don’t go on to having businesses and budding aspirations of the future.”
She said pandemic restrictions cut into the number of patients they could serve.
“With Covid many of the rooms had to be individual rooms, and then we were hardly seeing any patients, and so the need is so great in our state,” said Ciraco. “So we embarked on a campaign, a $3.2 million campaign, that has now increased to close to $4 million because of things like supply chain problems.”
Ciraco said they have already raised $3.3 million of that $4 million campaign.
She said they want to expand the number of beds from 12 to 22, but since the maximum stay is only about 30 days that will mean helping about 550 people a year, up from 250.
Ciraco said donations on Giving Tuesday will be matched at 100%.