Correction: Due to incorrect information provided to the Gazette, the original version of this article incorrectly named Cathy Adams as founder of the mammography fund for uninsured women. Adams has managed the mammography program since the death of its founder, Gert Berthiaume.
The Auxiliary of Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center presented its final donation to the hospital last week.
The charity, whose work spanned 62 years, raised more than $2 million for the hospital during that time, funding equipment, augmenting programs and running the popular Pineapple Gift Shop in the hospital lobby.
On June 20, the auxiliary’s last elected officers presented the hospital with a final gift of more than $100,000 to help purchase a second 3-D mammography device.
“We are grateful for the volunteers of the auxiliary who spent decades supporting our hospital and our mammography program,” Amber Price, Sentara Williamsburg’s president, said in a news release. “This generous gift will help bring advanced mammography services to more women in our community.”
The auxiliary started at the former Williamsburg Community Hospital and moved to Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center when it opened in 2006, according to outgoing auxiliary president Marie Bond. Thanks to an effort begun in 1998 by Gert Berthiaume, the auxiliary was able to fund $650,000 in free mammograms for uninsured patients. The program won national recognition from the American Hospital Association.
As members of the auxiliary, volunteers worked 50 hours a year, but many did much more.
“It was a big part of our lives,” Bond said in the release. “It made me feel that we were helping to make our community better.”
The auxiliary held fundraisers throughout the year, including galas and balls, Christmas tree lightings and ice cream socials. At its peak, the auxiliary had more than 300 members, but was down to less than half that when the group disbanded a few years ago. The gift shop is now run by the hospital.
Among the items sold at the gift shop were golf balls collected and refurbished from Kingsmill Resort. The group that collected the balls, the Ball Hawks, also ended its charity work for the hospital last year.
Bond, in the news release, said the auxiliary worked to fill financial gaps and enhance the operation for patients and staff.
“We felt it was our hospital,” she said. “That never changed. We wish them every success. Our hearts are with them.”
The lobby at Sentara Williamsburg, along with the Pineapple Gift Shop, is in the midst of a renovation project. The pineapple logo laid into the gift shop floor when the hospital was built in 2006 will be kept.
Kim O’Brien Root, kimberly.root@virginiamedia.com
![If it were not for the efforts of a William & Mary president in the 1960s there would not have been a marine science program to benefit from the school’s recent largest financial gift. Davis Y. Paschall, president 1960-1971, was instrumental in the development of the substantial academic programs of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at nearby Gloucester Point on the York River, The Virginia Fisheries Laboratory was established in 1940 as the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory as a joint effort between W&M and the Virginia Commission on Fisheries (now the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. It was initially organized […]](https://www.pilotonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/6SCYSOUXX5GSHC7UWSYZ2RSEAU.jpg?w=408 "If it were not for the efforts of a William & Mary president in the 1960s there would not have been a marine science program to benefit from the school’s recent largest financial gift. Davis Y. Paschall, president 1960-1971, was instrumental in the development of the substantial academic programs of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at nearby Gloucester Point on the York River, The Virginia Fisheries Laboratory was established in 1940 as the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory as a joint effort between W&M and the Virginia Commission on Fisheries (now the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. It was initially organized […]")
