Auxiliary’s wine tasting supports hospital scholarships and equipment
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
don.harrold@enterprisepub.com
About 100 people filled most of the room Oct. 14 for the Community Memorial Hospital Auxiliary Annual Wine Tasting at the Rand Community Center in Missouri Valley. Money from the event and the auxiliary’s other fundraisers pays for student scholarships and helps buy equipment for the hospital.
Kay Barry, president of the CHI Health Missouri Valley Auxiliary, said the wine tasting is the group’s largest fundraiser. “Come to our fundraisers that we have,” Barry said. “This is the biggest one.”
Oscar Carl Vineyard poured many varieties of wine. Barry, auxiliary member Deb Gochenour and Jeannie Wortman, president of the Missouri Valley Chamber of Commerce, worked through the crowd.
Barry and Alex Burhop, president of CHI Health Missouri Valley, talked about the auxiliary’s work during the event. Barry said the auxiliary gives five $1,000 scholarships each year, plus a sixth from the gift shop it runs at the hospital in Missouri Valley. “We do these fundraisers,” she said. “We’ll have a cookie exchange in December. We have a couple of nacho days up at the hospital, and ... we just charge a minimal fee, and we have floats ... and up at the hospital, we have a salad luncheon every spring.”
She said much of the money also goes to the hospital. “If they don’t have any money left in their department, we help them purchase certain things they might need for their clinics,” Barry said. She said the auxiliary has bought a computer and a touch-button device for physical therapy.
Barry said the auxiliary is a board with 16 members. Its officers are Barry, president; Sharon Solan, vice president; Jerry Sue Kinsella, treasurer; and Deb Gochenour, secretary.
Barry agreed that ticket sales alone don’t cover the scholarships and said bidding makes up the difference. “They’ll bid on the baskets and ... the open bidding on the bigger things that we have,” she said. “Well, even our salad luncheons, the gift shop is huge.”
Barry said she believed the gift shop alone accounts for about $60,000, but she wasn’t sure of the exact figure. “Our bank account is doing very nicely and still able to give away those scholarships every year,” she said.
Barry said the auxiliary also holds a rhubarb float day at the hospital. It has a booth at the Harrison County Fair, where it sells food and popcorn donated by members. “Then we went to the Apple Fest and sold things from our gift shop, and so our gift shop and our auxiliary are two separate things, but ... they both are very good money makers,” she said.
Barry said Burhop is “very supportive of us.” She described the auxiliary’s relationship with the hospital. “We’re separate, but yet they work with us, and we have our meetings up there,” she said.
Burhop said he started his career at CHI working under the hospital’s previous president. “This is my third or fourth wine outing, and every time I’ve come here, it’s been fantastic,” he said.
When asked what the event means to the hospital, Burhop answered, “Everything.” He said the money the auxiliary raises “here and at other events” helps the hospital get equipment to serve its patients. He said it also helps fund education for students who want to work in health care or at the hospital. “We’re so blessed to have their support,” he said.
Burhop said the hospital’s departments all donate baskets for the event. He said his wife made a homemade quilt for a picnic-themed basket they put together.
Burhop grew up on a farm outside Storm Lake, Iowa, about two hours north. His father is a farmer. “A lot of his struggle was accessing care he needed locally. We used to actually drive down to Omaha,” Burhop said. “I had always told them ... when I grew up, I wanted to be a hospital president in a rural community in Iowa.”
Burhop said he plans to stay in Missouri Valley a long time. He and his wife married last November. They moved to Crescent last year and bought a house, and she is a speech pathologist at the VA in Omaha. “We’re very happy here,” he said.
Burhop said he wanted readers to know the event is a chance to support the auxiliary. “It’s a great time to come out, have some unexpected finds, support our local auxiliary, have a good time,” he said. “And I think we just love to see it grow.”
