Take it from Hillel, Maimonides and Ben Franklin: it’s time to get involved at PHCS.
PHCS needs you! We need your energy and your resourcefulness as volunteers, as committee members, as informed spokespeople and as donors. What’s in it for you? Let’s consider what the sages say:How can becoming involved in PHCS benefit me?
The first-century scholar and theologian Hillel succinctly challenged us to define our focus in life: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”First of all, we must take care of ourselves and our families. And at some point, whether it’s an isolated incident or a chronic condition, our families will need the hospital. So doesn’t it make sense to maintain a relationship with this important resource?
Second, we can fulfill our broader responsibility for the welfare of our friends, neighbors and strangers by ensuring that the hospital is available 24/7 for all.
Third, there is no better time for involvement than right now. Before our very eyes, the hospital is transforming in ways that will further enhance life in New Jersey and which are being recognized by agencies and media across the country. It’s time to be part of something exceptional.
It’s also time to be part of something transcendent. Maimonides, the twelfth-century physician, scholar and philosopher, famously described an eight-rung ladder of increasingly noble acts of charitable giving. The highest rung, or most valuable gift, is one that enables the recipient to be self-reliant. Giving time and resources that restore a fellow soul’s health and self-reliance is surely a gift that transforms donor and recipient alike.
How can my involvement benefit PHCS?
Does one person’s contribution really make a difference? According to Ben Franklin’s 1751 fundraising appeal for the first hospital in America, it makes ALL the difference:
“But the Good particular Men may do separately, in relieving the Sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively, or by a joint Endeavour and Interest. Hence the Erecting of Hospitals or Infirmaries by Subscription, for the Reception, Entertainment, and Cure of the Sick, has been found by Experience exceedingly beneficial, as they turn out annually great Numbers of Patients perfectly cured, who might otherwise have been lost to their Families, and to Society...
...A Beggar in a well-regulated Hospital, stands an equal Chance with a Prince in his Palace, for a comfortable Subsistence, and an expeditious and effectual Cure of his Diseases.
...And the Subscribers have had the Satisfaction in a few Years of seeing the Good they proposed to do, become much more extensive than was at first expected.” Collectively, we can help the entire community and derive great satisfaction from doing so.
Don’t take it from me, take it from Hillel, Maimonides and Ben Franklin: Getting involved with PHCS will bless the life that you live and the community in which you live it. If there is any way that I can help get you involved, please email me directly.
Kim Pimley is Chairman of the Princeton HealthCare System Foundation Board of Directors.
For your own sake, and for the sake of our community, I urge you to increase your involvement in PHCS. Please pick up the phone, email or visit our website to sign up for a program, offer a helping hand in the hospital, participate on a committee or make a donation:
- Community Education & Outreach
Robbi Alexander, Program Coordinator
609.897.8983 - Volunteer Services
Pamela Tritz-OkiaManager, Volunteer Services
609.497.4276 - PHCS Foundation – to participate in a committee
Kelly Madsen , Manager, Stewardship & Special Events
609.497.4190 - PHCS Foundation – to make a donation
Tracey Hazelton-Werts, Gift and Data Entry Coordinator
609.252.8702
Article as seen in Foundation News, Fall 2010 .