Board Dedicates SECU Family House: 350 Guests Join In Celebration
On May 8, 2008, at 5:00 on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, the SECU Family House Board of Directors dedicated its new 40-bedroom hospital hospitality house and ushered in a new approach to adult critical care at UNC Hospitals.
Three hundred and fifty guests joined President Katie Early and President-elect Tom Shea, MD, in the William G. III and Gray Clark Courtyard to celebrate the House’s mission, bless its activities, and listen to remarks from those who provided the primary institutional gifts to the $8.2M capital and endowment campaign.
Those who shared remarks about what drove their support of SECU Family House include David King (Chairman, SECU Foundation), Representative Verla Insko (NC General Assembly, D-56, Orange County), Dr. William L. Roper, (CEO, UNC Health Care System), and Bob Greczyn (Chairman, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation).
The final speaker was retired Marine Colonel Jack Carroll, a recent recipient of a bone marrow transplant, who had spent the past five weeks at the House. Jack brought the assembled crowd to a standing ovation. On his 100th post-transplant day, Jack spoke passionately about the excellent care he had received at UNC Hospitals—at every level—and assured those present that Family House is an integral and essential part of that care. His concern, as patient, had been primarily for the comfort and security of his wife Sara. Family House had provided a sense of psychological well-being for them both as they moved toward increased physical wholeness and healing.
The moving celebration concluded with a ceremonial cutting of the ribbon around the columns in the Clark Courtyard. Despite Bill Clark’s recent death (see more about Bill Clark in the Donor News section), Gray Clark and her son, Bill Clark IV, and daughter, Gray Clark Stoughton, as well as several of Bill and Gray Clark’s grandchildren, were on hand for the ceremony.
UNC Health Care sponsored the entire event, providing all the food and the transportation to and from Family House from nearby parking provided by St. Thomas More Catholic Church.