Well done!

I’d like to acknowledge with gratitude the work of the Community General Hospital Employee Community Service Fund, which has assisted members of the Community family since 1993.

With Community’s transition to Upstate University Hospital, the CGH Employee Fund completes its exemplary, quiet service.

I say “quiet,” but the Fund could actually be quite noisy once each year during the campaign to aid the United Way of Central New York and the Community General Foundation -- and to resupply its own coffers for the benefit the Community General family members.

Once the annual United Way campaign was finished, the Fund board labored in relative obscurity, inconspicuously providing temporary financial assistance to employees and other “family members” for a “sudden, unplanned economic hardship due to accident, loss or disaster” (in the words of the Fund).

With the transition of Community's employees to Upstate (and to Upstate’s contract services), payroll deductions come to an end, and the Employee Fund completes its work and its lifespan.

Although employee pledges end as of mid-year, Fund directors voted recently to complete payment to the United Way of Fund's full pledge for 2011. Any amount remaining in the Fund goes to the Community General Foundation, which will continue as a fund raising corporation after the Upstate acquisition is completed.

During its existence, the Fund provided some $150,000 to assist CGH family members through hard times.

In addition, United Way contributions from the Employee Fund have been more than $400,000 over that period.

To all who supported the Fund and to the directors who made it work, congratulations and thank you.

Job well done!