Campaign to Rebuild Hospital Turns to Year-Round Islanders

By JAMES KINSELLA

With summer residents on board with major donations for the
Martha's Vineyard Community Hospital capital campaign, volunteers
are pursuing the next crucial area of support: the Islanders who call
the Vineyard home.

The Islander campaign has gotten under way with a series of
by-invitation dinners and an advertising effort asking for donations
from the Vineyard community at large. An Islandwide mailing is due to go
out by the end of the month.

The campaign is seeking donations from each of the 6,500 Vineyard
households with locally registered voters.

"The money's important," said Chilmark resident
Edward Miller, chairman of the Islander campaign. "But
what's most important is the percentage participation."

The capital campaign has raised more than $30 million in pledges
toward the $42 million the hospital said is needed to rebuild and expand
its aging facility off Linton Lane in Oak Bluffs.

"We're pleased to be roughly 75 per cent of the way
there," said Warren Spector, co-chairman of the capital campaign.
"The last 25 per cent is the hardest part, not the easiest
part."

For the campaign to reach its goal, Mr. Spector said,
"We're going to have to get a very large volume of medium
and small gifts."

That is where campaign planners hope that year-round Vineyarders
will step in. Providing 10 per cent of the overall campaign goal -
about $4 million –- would get us a long way there, Mr. Spector
said.

Moreover, he added, almost every donor so far has asked whether the
Islanders planned to back the campaign.

"Summer residents who are bearing the vast majority of the
burden want to know that the Island community supports it - not
only in words but in deeds," Mr. Spector said.

Mr. Miller said a committee to steer Island fund-raising efforts
started to form soon after the overall capital campaign was formally
launched last summer with an announcement that $20 million in pledges
had been collected.

Participants, Mr. Miller said, told him they were tired of the
attitude that summer people should take care of it. "If there ever
was an issue that drew us together, this is it," he said.

The committee, eventually composed of 20 people, began meeting in
September. Early on they decided who to define as an Islander: a locally
registered voter.

Tim Walsh, chief executive officer at the hospital, gave a
presentation on the hospital project at the committee's first
meeting.

Committee members all decided to support the campaign. They also
committed to hosting 20 by-invitation receptions where Mr. Walsh would
give his presentation.

"We're going to have a series of these things through
the winter into the spring," Mr. Miller said. At the receptions,
participants are being asked for their own suggestions for the new
hospital.

Committee members Clarissa Allen of Chilmark and Berta Welch of
Aquinnah hosted one of the first receptions, shortly before Christmas.

"It would be irresponsible not to have a good, modern, really
functional hospital," Ms. Allen said. While she said the hospital
as it now exists was cobbled together over time, she said the proposed
reconstruction is very functional and well-planned.

For her, joining the committee was a fun opportunity to work with
close friends toward something that will benefit the entire Vineyard
community.

The broader Vineyard population will be targeted for donations
through Islander campaign advertisements and mailings.

At present, the hospital is housed in sections dating from 1929 and
1972. The hospital has described both buildings as outdated and
inefficient. Demand can quickly overwhelm the hospital's
relatively few beds.

The hospital is proposing a new two-story wing, partial replacement
of the 1929 section, and renovation of the 1972 section. The new wing
would house all inpatient rooms, surgery, imaging, outpatient services
and the emergency department. The 1972 wing would house physician and
hospital administration offices. The number of licensed beds at the
hospital would rise from 19 to 25.

Mr. Miller, who retired in 2002, said he sees his participation in
the capital campaign as a way "to give back to the Island that my
wife and I love."