JUNE 3, 2020

Dear Friends,

I hope you and your family are doing well. We want to express our thanks for the outpouring of support our community has provided to SMH over the past couple of months through our COVID-19 Support Fund. The response has been incredible—to date, over $700,000 has been raised.

As the hospital’s pandemic response evolves, the Healthcare Foundation continues to work closely with the SMH team to identify the areas of greatest need. Philanthropic support provides SMH with critical resources that help them best serve our community and protect their employees. Your gifts have truly made a difference.

In my previous email, I mentioned how community support provided SMH with essential funding for clinical research trials for the antiviral drug, Remdesivir. Most recently, donations to our COVID-19 Support Fund have provided the hospital with the following grants to:

• Enhance the hospital’s in-patient COVID-19 testing by dramatically reducing the time needed to determine whether a patient is positive for the virus from days to hours
• Help SMH purchase additional Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), including facemasks and disposable isolation gowns for the frontline staff
• Purchase additional equipment to further advance COVID-19 testing capabilities of the SMH Lab
• Provide assistance to SMH employees who were financially impacted during the COVID crisis

The Healthcare Foundation appreciates your support in making all these grants possible. We are also grateful to the incredible staff at SMH, who work tirelessly and courageously each day. As our area’s restrictions begin to ease, we must remain mindful of the COVID-19 threat. It is imperative that we continue helping SMH fight the virus and ensure that we and our loved ones receive excellent care.

If you are interested in making a gift to the COVID-19 Support Fund, please visit our website at smhf.org or contact our office at (941) 917-1286.

Thank you and stay well,
Mason Ayres
President
Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation