‘A chance to give’
Donors’ $15M gift jump-starts blueprints for health network
NORWALK — Carol Bauer attended a semester of seminary at the urging of her fiancé before she realized she could do more as a teacher and wife of a generous man than she could as a minister.
But it was the loss of the couple’s first child, Peter, when he was just an infant that prepared Bauer to be a healing presence for others in the maternity and pediatric units at Norwalk Hospital, where she has been the on-call volunteer chaplain for a decade.
So the Bauer’s $15 million gift to build a seven-floor pavilion at Norwalk Hospital is less like an extraordinary one-time donation, and more like the steady pattern of giving that has marked the lives of the Wilton couple.
“We are blessed with this money and we are blessed to give it away,” said Carol Bauer during an interview at the hospital. “People have said to us so often, ‘When are you two going to do something for yourselves?’ and I say, ‘What makes you think we don’t love what we are doing?’ ”
Bauer and her husband, George, a retired IBM executive, have given gifts to the hospital to help establish the Bauer Emergency Care Center, the Jeffrey Peter Bauer Newborn Intensive Care Unit and the Carol Bauer Nursing Scholarship.
“We really do love what we’re doing — we both do,” said Carol Bauer, who has volunteered at the hospital for 40 years. “When we see a life change for a patient here and we think that we made a difference, we rejoice in that.”
Of course, the Bauer’s gift is extraordinary – the
200,000-square-foot tower that is scheduled to open in
2022 represents the largest expansion in Norwalk Hospital’s 126-year history.
Blueprints call for new facilities in the tower for surgery, pediatrics, critical care and women’s health, according to a release from Nuvance — the newly named umbrella health network that operates Danbury and Norwalk hospitals, along with a four-hospital network based in New York.
The umbrella health network, which was recently approved by state and federal regulators, created a $2 billion organization serving
1.5 million people from the Sound Shore to the Hudson River.
The Bauer’s gift follows the unveiling of a $4 million pediatric section at Danbury Hospital that is designed as a first step to expand its services, in partnership with the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford.
The Bauer’s tower concept is similar to the 11-story pavilion that opened in 2014 at Danbury Hospital with the help of a $30 million donation from Subway cofounder Peter Buck.
The health network’s top officer called the Bauer’s gift “remarkably generous.”
“We are dedicated to making investments in people, facilities, programs, and services to advance the caliber and scope of care we provide our patients,” said John Murphy, CEO of Nuvance, in a prepared statement. “This transformative gift from the Bauers will allow us to do just that in Norwalk.”
Carol Bauer, a certified chaplain who wears a white hospital coat when she goes on pastoral visits, said the devastating experience of losing her son after only five days taught her that each experience of grief is unique.
“We don’t preach, we don’t proselytize – we are with patients at their most vulnerable times and we listen to them and we affirm their feelings,” she said. “The process of learning to listen is almost detective work: you try to understand what are they really telling you – and then you acknowledge that if you can.”
She credits her ability to give generously to her partnership with her husband of 64 years.
“The secret to our marriage is he makes the money and I spend it,” she said. “Truly, it is my husband who has done so well in business who has given us the opportunity to give.”