The two-year Campaign for St. Anthony Hospital announced today it exceeded its $10 million goal by raising just over $11 million in pledges and contributions from individuals, companies and foundations to help build and equip Gig Harbor’s new hospital. The state-of-the-art hospital opened in March.

Additionally, the Franciscan Foundation secured $5 million in state-grant funding to help improve traffic access to the new hospital. With that, the total amount raised from all sources to benefit St. Anthony Hospital is $16 million.

The Campaign for St. Anthony Hospital concluded on June 30.

More than 1,300 campaign donors contributed to help fund a variety of St. Anthony Hospital needs. These included a state-of-the-art outpatient cancer center; a 24-hour emergency care center; sophisticated surgical and medical imaging equipment; a community wellness center; physical, occupational and speech therapy equipment; patient-care endowments; and art, gardens and water features to enhance the hospital’s holistic healing environment.

“We’re extremely grateful to St. Anthony’s many supporters for their generous response to this campaign, particularly in this difficult economy,” said Jon Flora, president of the Franciscan Foundation. “Their gifts have helped make St. Anthony much more than a typical 80-bed community hospital.”

The campaign was led by Co-Chairs and Gig Harbor residents Sharon Snuffin and Rick Larson and their campaign steering committee of 11 other Gig Harbor/Peninsula community leaders.

“It’s been gratifying to see the depth and breadth of this community’s support for our new hospital,” observed Snuffin. “That support is visible throughout the hospital in the many familiar Gig Harbor names that appear on rooms, waiting areas and other places in recognition of significant gifts. I’m thrilled with how well St. Anthony turned out and proud of the role our campaign volunteers and donors played in helping to create this beautiful new facility for our community.”

Larson agreed, adding: “Five years ago, Gig Harbor and Peninsula residents packed public hearings and wrote more than 700 letters to convince state officials that we needed a hospital in Gig Harbor. State hospital officials said they’d never seen anything like it. Now, through their support of this campaign during one of the most difficult economic periods in our history, the people of our community have demonstrated again how strongly we feel about the importance of having our own hospital.”

Active fundraising for the Campaign for St. Anthony Hospital was launched two years ago to help Franciscan Health System build St. Anthony and improve health care access for the more than 130,000 residents of Gig Harbor, Key Peninsula, South Kitsap County and North Mason County.

Although St. Anthony is the newest and one of the smallest of Franciscan’s five South Sound hospitals, the amount that donors pledged to the Campaign for St. Anthony is more than double the largest amount previously pledged to any other Franciscan hospital campaign.

Gifts and grants to the Campaign for St. Anthony Hospital from private donors ranged from $50 to $2 million, with nearly 80 percent of the campaign’s $11 million from individuals, companies and foundations coming from 25 donors who each contributed $100,000 or more.

Five of these donors pledged gifts of $500,000 or more, in amounts of $2 million, $1.5 million, $1 million, $600,000 and $500,000. Six others pledged gifts of $250,000 to $350,000.

Half the campaign’s nearly 1,300 donors were new donors who had never before contributed to Franciscan. Also, 60 percent of the other half who had previously contributed to Franciscan gave their largest gift to the non-profit organization through the Campaign for St. Anthony.

Key pledges in the campaign from private donors included $1.5 million from the George F. Russell, Jr. Fund at The Russell Family Foundation to launch the campaign; $1 million from Mary Ann Walters to help move the campaign forward; $2 million from the Gary E. Milgard Family Foundation to boost the campaign over its halfway point; $500,000 from Jim and Carolyn Milgard to lift the campaign over its $10 million goal, and $600,000 from Jody Erickson and the Brett Erickson Golf Classic recently to cap the campaign’s final total at $11 million from individuals, businesses and foundations.

An unexpected campaign highlight was provided by 17-year-old Kelsey Osborne who raised $250,000 during her recently completed senior year at Gig Harbor High School to help build the Jane Thompson Russell Cancer Care Center, located in the Milgard Medical Pavilion at St. Anthony. She did it in memory of her father, David Osborne, who died of cancer. In appreciation of Kelsey’s impressive work, the Russell Cancer Center’s lobby is now named in honor of her father.

Snuffin and Larson said that the community’s generous response to the Campaign for St. Anthony Hospital is impressive also because it came on the heels of three other major capital campaigns in Gig Harbor. They noted that donors have contributed about $50 million in the last four years to help build St. Anthony Hospital, a new history museum, the YMCA, and a new Boys and Girls Club.

In addition to Snuffin and Larson, the campaign’s other steering committee members were Jan Angel of Port Orchard; Greg Denk, Margaret Lapin, Lori Ann Reeder, Dr. Cliff Robertson, Peachy Smalling, Patti Tebb and Greg Unruh, all of Gig Harbor; Bob Ryan of Gig Harbor/Tacoma; Mary Senecal of University Place/Gig Harbor; and Theresa Girard Walters of Key Peninsula.

City of Gig Harbor and Washington State government officials – led by state Rep. Derek Kilmer – also assisted the campaign in securing $5 million in state job development grant funding in recognition of the 450 new health care jobs that St. Anthony Hospital has created.

The campaign director was Bob Krotz and Mary Burch was the campaign assistant. The Franciscan Foundation provided additional staff and technical support. Campaign counsel was provided by the Collins Group.

In addition to the $16 million contributed by Campaign for St. Anthony donors, Franciscan Health system has invested more than $150 million of its operational and bond funding in building St. Anthony Hospital.

Franciscan is affiliated with Catholic Health Initiatives, one of the largest non-profit health systems in the U.S. with hospitals and other care facilities in 22 states.