OurLegacyToday Fall 2017
Legacy Community Health Board of Directors Beth Bruce Chairperson Amanda Goodie Vice-Chairperson Beryl Basham Secretary Alex Jessett Treasurer Glenna Pierpont At-Large / Executive Committee Sehba Ali Glenn Bauguss Tony Bravo George Burch Abigail Caudle, M.D. Victor Cordova, Jr. Bryan Hlavinka Bethsheba Johnson Alton LaDay Mariana Chavez Mac Gregor, M.D. Johnson Olatunji Naveen Pinglay Cyndy Garza Roberts Lauren Soliz Marissa Taler
After Hurricane Harvey: Healing and Hope Katy Caldwell, CEO, Legacy Community Health Once I’d made sure my friends and family were OK, my first thought was: How soon can we open? We knew people were going to need our services, and all of us at Legacy felt the responsibility to be there for our communities. As a result of this shared sense of urgency, Legacy opened five of its clinics two days after the rain subsided. Our clinics across Houston, Baytown, and Beaumont escaped catastrophic damage, so our biggest concern was staffing our locations. Approximately 100 Legacy employees lost their homes, and many weren’t able to get to their assigned clinics, so our wonderful Operations team had to perform a staffing juggling act. They came through beautifully, sending staff to the clinics they could access and flexing work hours to deal with increased road traffic. Our Development team set up free child care for employees during our first week back, and also initiated an Employee Assistance Fund to financially support staff impacted by the storm. I was then and remain today extremely proud of the Legacy family.
Staff at Legacy’s East End worked around drywall and carpet repairs
Ceiling damage at Legacy Central Beaumont
Legacy Community Health Endowment Board of Directors James A. Reeder, Jr. Chairperson Tripp Carter Vice-Chairperson Bryan Hlavinka Secretary
Day care drop-off at St. Luke’s and St. Paul’s United Methodist Churches
Mike Holloman Treasurer Michael Alexander Joshua L. Espinedo Brent N. Whiteley Melanie Gray Board Member Emeritus Melissa Mithoff Board Member Emeritus Monsour Taghdisi Board Member Emeritus Claire Cormier Thielke Board Member Emeritus
The lack of running water in Beaumont meant delaying the re-opening of those clinics, but all other Legacy clinics were open on September 4th. We responded to community needs in the short term, offering free tetanus shots and opening more slots for walk-in patients. Legacy plans to be here for the long haul as well, to treat first responders and volunteers who got sick from the floodwaters or mold from mucking houses, helping evacuees cope with posttraumatic stress, and supporting our employees as they reclaim their lives. We don’t know what the long-term impact of this disaster will be, so we’re being mindful of how best to proceed. Our Contact Center has seen an increase in calls since Harvey passed through the area, so while we know the need is great, the future remains unclear. It’s hard to even consider, but if neighborhoods along the reservoirs are bought out by the government, we could see even more trauma as people lose
homes they’ve lived in for decades, or homes their parents first purchased many years ago. Legacy is well known for identifying problems and tackling them head on. Give us a problem, and we’ll solve it; that’s what we’ve been doing for nearly 40 years. Luckily, we don’t have to do it alone. Broadway Cares, a nonprofit HIV/ AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization, has already stepped up with a financial contribution. (Read more about our partnership with Broadway Cares on page 2). Donations to our Harvey relief fund have come from individual donors as far away as Vancouver and Hawaii. As a lifelong Houstonian, I’m proud of Mayor Sylvester Turner, County Judge Ed Emmett, the entire disaster management team, and the thousands of people who volunteered at the George R. Brown Convention Center and NRG Park. This dark hour in our history brought out the best in Houston in the worst of times.