Green Tie Gala
It’s probably safe to say that Dave Myers felt like the lucky leprechaun who found the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow following the Metro Community Provider Network’s Green Tie Gala.
Myers, who will retire in April after 24 years as the MCPN’s president and chief executive officer, left the Hyatt Regency Tech Center knowing that the 425 guests had raised $188,759 to continue his agency’s work in providing affordable, culturally sensitive and comprehensive health care to low-income residents in the metro area.
He also went home with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award given by the National Association of Community Health Centers.
“As we navigate the waters of a new administration, we are fortunate to be in a partnership with 19 other community health centers in Colorado who are all focused on meeting whatever may come,” Myers said. “We are choosing to be leaders of change and have our voices be heard.”
The 13th annual Green Tie Gala was planned by Angela Green, Belinda Smallwood, Gail Dieckhaus, Jamie Haney, Jane Harris, Jean Sisneros, Jeff Weide, Joe Huber and Lucy Kishbaugh. Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis, vice president of government, external relations and research for Kaiser Permanente Colorado, was mistress of ceremonies.
“Our medical safety net must be protected,” AllenDavis said in saluting the MCPN’s service to those in need.
Barbara Shannon-Banister, a member of the MCPN board, recalled how the agency began with a single clinic in Aurora in 1989 and has grown to provide affordable and accessible medical, behavioral and dental health care to 50,000 people annually. The MCPN, she said, earned its status as a key player in the health care arena by “decreasing barriers and maintaining a high level of care.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman remembers attending the grand opening “In a little house on a residential street in Aurora” and, like Shannon-Banister, is proud of the “truly extraordinary” organization it has become.
Other guests included Marla Williams, president/ CEO of the Community First Foundation; Dennis O’Malley and Denise Denton; MCPN vice presidents John Reid and Bob Cunningham; event planner Nancy Lamb Thompson and her husband, Jeff, the vice president for government and corporate relations at University of Colorado Health; Aleah Horstman, chief operating officer at Arapahoe House; Carol Saltzmann, vice president for community and government affairs at Lutheran Medical Center, which, with Quest Diagnostics, was the gala’s Pot O’Gold sponsor; and Ben Wiederholt, who will succeed Myers as the MCPN’s president/CEO. Joanne Davidson: 303-8091314, partiwriter@hotmail.com and @joannedavidson on Twitter.