Hutchens Family Creates Community Health Foundation Fund

DAYTON-Bob and Anita Hutchens and Dolores Hutchens Cole have established a new fund for the benefit of friends and neighbors living in Columbia County, Dayton and Waitsburg.

The Dayton/Waitsburg Community Health Care Foundation Fund is a permanent endowment, and it is a component fund of the Blue Mountain Community Foundation.

According to Bob Hutchens, the Fund was created in the memory of his parents, Dale and Dorothy Hutchens, and others who cared deeply about health and health care issues. He says it will benefit friends and neighbors living within the Columbia County Public Hospital District.

"We did it because of my work as a hospital commissioner, and my sister felt that this was an opportunity to give back to the community," Hutchens said. "The community has been good to us over the years."

Hutchens said that his family settled in Dayton, in the 1870s, and has had a long history as boosters for health care services in the community, which include his father's service on the hospital district board of commissioners in the 1970s.

According to the foundation's spending policy, three to five percent of the fund will be available each year, and the funds will go to scholarships in the health care field, and to other health care services, such as facilities improvement and equipment purchases, Hutchens said.

A committee made up of representatives from the Columbia County Public Hospital District's Board of Commissioners and from the Board of Columbia County Commissioners, along with medical staff leaders, nursing staff leaders, and facilities staff leaders, will be in charge of distribution of the funds, and they will be guided by the philosophy of making the health care system better for patients.

Since its inception in July, the fund has grown to $20,380, and the Hutchens family invites the community to participate in supporting the fund.

For more information about the Dayton/Waitsburg Community Health Foundation Fund, and the Blue Mountain Community Foundation, contact Kari Isaacson, Executive Director of the Blue Mountain Community Foundation at: (509) 529-4371 or Bob Hutchens at: (509) 382-2090.