Recognizing the Record-Breaking Support of Our Community

Each spring, the Bayhealth Foundation conducts a direct mail campaign in which it asks previous donors and others in the community to consider making a monetary gift to support Bayhealth. “This year, when COVID-19 struck and we got a sense of what an enormous financial burden it was going to be on Bayhealth and how many people were eager to help their local community health system in this time of crisis, we decided to transition our outreach to email. The end result was the largest and most successful spring fundraising effort that we’ve had in recent memory,” explained Bayhealth Foundation President Lindsay Rhodenbaugh.

More specifically, Bayhealth received monetary contributions totaling more than $260,000. In addition, more than 250 gifts-in-kind were given to the organization. These monetary gifts and other donations — such as food for our staff, masks and other PPE, and hand sanitizer, to name a few examples — came from 145 individuals, families, businesses, and grantor agencies.

The monetary gifts were used to support Bayhealth staff and organizational COVID-19-related needs. “We always honor the wishes of our donors regarding how they want their monetary philanthropic support to be used,” said Rhodenbaugh. “So, this year when folks gave in recognition of COVID-19 challenges, we purchased local restaurant gift cards that were distributed to our caregivers and other employees as well as PPE and other equipment and supplies that were needed. Others donated to our special COVID-19 Employee Assistance Fund, which was set up to help our employees who suffered a reduction in their household income because a spouse or a partner lost a job due to COVID-19.”

Bayhealth is extremely grateful for all of the philanthropic support that we received during this very difficult and unprecedented time.

Visit Bayhealth.org/Foundation to learn more about how you can make a monetary donation to Bayhealth.