Lupoli Donates $250K to Lawrence General Hospital Capital Campaign
LAWRENCE – Seven years after the death of a brother who was treated for leukemia at Lawrence General Hospital, developer Sal Lupoli visited the hospital Wednesday to announce a $250,000 gift that he said would be the first check written by his newly formed charitable foundation.
The hospital responded by announcing it will christen its pediatric unit in the name of Lupoli and his family, who joined him in a cramped corridor between the unit and the maternity ward for a ceremony with hospital officials to announce the gift, while patients and visitors scampered around them.
“We could have gone to Boston, to Dana-Farber (Cancer Institute), but we believe in this hospital and what it means to the Merrimack Valley,” Lupoli said, referring to the family's decision about where to seek care for Lupoli's brother, James, who died in 2007. “The Merrimack Valley needs to focus on Lawrence General Hospital because of what it does.”
Lupoli's gift will support the capital campaign the hospital announced recently, which hopes to raise up to $15 million to renovate in-patient rooms, rebuild the surgical building and upgrade mammography technology. The work is expected to cost about $75 million in all, most of it borrowed, according to Nick Zaharias, the hospital's vice president for philanthropy.
No work is planned for the pediatric unit that will be renamed for the Lupoli family, but Lupoli said he's pleased to lend his name to a facility whose task is "to bring new life into the city, into the world."
Lupoli owns Lupoli Companies, which owns Riverwalk Properties, a 1.4 million-square-foot office campus of converted mill buildings on Merrimack Street. The company also owns a restaurant at the office park and a chain of pizzerias.
Lupoli said his mother, Jeanette, will serve as president of family's new charitable foundation, although he said she is critically ill. He said more gifts to other institutions will follow, but was not specific.
In addition to Lupoli's family, including his wife, Kati; his son, Sal Jr.; his daughter, Mary; and his brothers, Michael and Nicholas, Wednesday's event was attended by Dianne Anderson, a nurse who is the hospital's president; Matthew Caffrey, the chairman of the hospital's board; Richard Santagati, who served on the board for 25 years, including six as its chairman, and is now its chairman emirates.
"The Lupoli family has become the mover and shaker of the Merrimack Valley and southern New Hampshire," Caffrey said, standing beside an over-sized reproduction of Lupoli's $250,000 check at yesterday's event. "We're on a roll, but we would not be so without you and your family."
By Keith Eddings· October 1, 2014· The Eagle Tribune· Original Article