Littauer’s organ donation efforts recognized in 126th annual Tournament of Roses Parade Posted on January 30, 2015 by Dakota PikeGLOVERSVILLE – Nathan Littauer Hospital will be recognized once again with a rose on the Donate Life Float in the 126th annual Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day. Nathan Littauer partners with the Center for Donation & Transplant (CDT) to facilitate life-saving organ and tissue donation. The rose also recognizes Littauer’s support for organ donation through the Donate Life Flag Program. In 2015, a flag will be flown at the hospital following every organ and tissue donation case, which will then be given to the donors’ families in honor of their loved one. This year’s float features “The Never-Ending Story,” a special float developed by the national Donate Life America organization, will appear in the parade to commemorate organ donation. It includes butterflies emerging from storybooks to symbolize the enduring power of organ, eye and tissue donation and transplantation. The float and its honored participants are the centerpiece of a national campaign leading up to the 2015 Rose Parade, whose theme this year is “Inspiring Stories.” “Every donation of organs, eyes and tissue begins an inspiring story that lives on forever,” said Bryan Stewart, chairman of the Donate Life Rose Parade Float Committee. “In their passing, deceased donors open up a world of health, sight and mobility to people in need.” Since its debut on New Year’s Day 2004, the Donate Life Rose Parade Float has become the world’s most visible campaign to inspire people to become organ, eye and tissue donors. The campaign began as an idea expressed in a letter by lung recipient Gary Foxen of Orange, Calif., who wanted to show gratitude to donors who make life-saving transplants possible. Now in its 12th year, the float entry is celebrated at hundreds of events nationwide where families put the finishing touches on florograph (a picture of the donor made out of plants/flowers) portraits and donation and transplant professionals present dedicated roses to donor families, living donors and community partners who play a role in making donation possible. The florograph will be on display at the news conference. Donation experts say that one person can save up to eight lives through the donation of vital organs – heart, kidney, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine – and help 50 people or more who need corneas to see, skin to heal from burns, and bones and connective tissue for common knee, back and dental surgeries. In addition, approximately 6,000 lives per year are saved by living kidney and liver donors. Anyone can sign up when renewing a driver’s license or state identification, or by visiting www.DonateLifeAmerica.org. The 126th parade will took place on Thursday, Jan. 1, featuring majestic floral floats, high-stepping equestrian units and spirited marching bands. Following the parade was the 101st Rose Bowl Game. (CBS News website)Organ and tissue recipients and other volunteers began decorating the 12th Donate Life float in Pasadena on New Year’s Day. Nathan Littauer Hospital & Nursing Home was represented with the float.
2013 Annual Report Video Posted on November 17, 2014February 28, 2025 by Dakota PikeYou may have seen our 2013 Report to the Community distributed in local papers, watch here to see the video!
The Ferguson Fund supports Littauer and employees Posted on November 11, 2014 by Dakota PikeGLOVERSVILLE – Recently, the inaugural recipients of the Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson and Robert A. Ferguson Fund for Education scholarship award were presented at Nathan Littauer Hospital & Nursing Home. Scholarships of $ 2,500 each were granted to Lisa A. Winchell and Brooke M. Nellis, both employees at Littauer. Lisa Winchell currently serves Nathan Littauer Hospital as an operating room technician and is pursuing an Associate’s Degree in nursing from the Belanger School of Nursing at Ellis Hospital. Upon completion Ms. Winchell will be trained as a Registered Nurse. Brooke Nellis currently serves Nathan Littauer Hospital as a Med / Surg. Registered Nurse and is pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in nursing from Utica College. “The Littauer Foundation is honored to have the Fergusons create this prestigious and generous award for Littauer employees” said Geoffrey Peck Vice President / Executive Director Nathan Littauer Foundation. “They have become great benefactors.” Peck added it was important to the Fergusons that donations be used where they would have the most impact. “They chose Littauer, and we are so thankful.” Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson is a Gloversville native. She and her husband Robert are both professors at Columbia University, Priscilla in the Department of Sociology and Robert is the George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature, and Criticism in the Law School. They own a house in Gloversville and are active in community life here. The Ferguson Fund comes out of a family tradition of support for the Hospital. Priscilla’s father, Richard B. Parkhurst, served as a longtime member and officer of the Nathan Littauer Hospital Board of Directors. As educators, Priscilla and Robert appreciate that learning never ends, and they know that the need for incremental learning is especially important and exciting in the medical field where necessary advances in health care take place all of the time. They also feel it is a good way to serve the community generally. Just as Littauer employees are the heart and soul of the Hospital, so the Hospital itself helps to sustain Gloversville as a vital and desirable place to live. Priscilla and Robert hope that the Ferguson Fund will grow to the point where it can help many employees to advance their own careers through continuing education while furthering the goals of ever better and safer patient care. “We need the best and brightest minds to enter and remain in the field of healthcare” said Laurence Kelly, Littauer President and CEO. “The field of healthcare must have our finest and most prepared people. This scholarship ensures that its recipients desiring to further their education will have the support to do so. It is hard to anticipate the demands that will be placed on hospitals in the future, but this scholarship helps us prepare our workforce for whatever that future will be. “. XXX Nathan Littauer Hospital and Family of Health Services serves Fulton, Montgomery, and Hamilton Counties in Upstate New York with a full-service 74-bed acute care hospital, eight primary care centers, a nursing home and a community education center. The hospital was founded in 1894, has 1,000 employees and recently hosted ground-breaking spine surgeries. For more information please visit www.nlh.org.
NLH supports the Peck’s Lake triathlon Posted on September 9, 2014 by Dakota PikeThanks to all for help with Peck’s Lake triathlonThe Daily Gazette – Sunday, September 7, 2014, Leader Herald – Thursday, August 7, 2014 Letters to the editor:Thanks to all for help with Peck’s Lake triathlonThe fifth annual Peck’s Lake Sprint Triathlon took place on Aug. 2 on and around Peck’s Lake. The day’s conditions made for a great day. The event hosted 111 athletes and their families and friends, with approximately 76 percent of participants from outside of Fulton County including participants from nine states. These participants spent money in our county on lodging, food and refreshments, and more. We are grateful to all of them for making our county their destination on that day and hopefully to return to Fulton County on many more occasions.The continued success of this triathlon would not be possible without the help of our entire Fulton County community and its businesses — Nathan Littauer Hospital, Brown’s Ford, Benjamin Moore Paint, Wal-Mart Distribution Center #6096, Alpin Haus, the Fulton Montgomery Regional Chamber of Commerce and its dedicated staff, the Peck’s Lake Protective Association, the Peck Family and Peck’s Lake Enterprises, the residents and volunteers of Peck’s Lake, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department, the Ambulance Service of Fulton County, the volunteer fire departments of Meco and Caroga Lake, and many other individuals who helped in many ways to make this a great event.A special thank you to the children of the Boys & Girls Club of Gloversville for their assistance at the finish line. Their help was greatly appreciated.We are thankful to all of these businesses and individuals. And we are grateful to our Fulton County residents who welcome with open arms these and thousands of other visitors as they explore the great resources of Fulton County.Mick Brenno,Gina DaBiere-GibbsThe writers are, respectively, Triathlon coordinator and director of Tourism for the Fulton Montgomery Regional Chamber of Commerce
Many wonderful things come without planning Posted on September 9, 2014 by Dakota PikeThe Rev. Bonnie M. Orth is the Pastoral Care Coordinator at Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing HomeMany wonderful things come without planningSeptember 6, 2014By The Rev. BONNIE M. ORTH, Leader HeraldDuring the summer, when the children in our church are on break from Sunday school, we have what we call “adult time” during our worship service. I have been reading snippets from a wonderful book by Mr. Rogers called, “Life’s Journeys According to Mister Rogers, Things to Remember Along the Way.” Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister whose specialized ministry was his wonderful children’s television show.This past Sunday, I read the following entry from his book, “I saw a friend who is a freelance writer and asked him what he was working on. ‘Nothing right now,’ he answered. ‘You know how it is for freelancers. But at times like this I tell myself I’m in between opportunities. That way, I don’t have to feel I’m nowhere.'”Mister Rogers continued, “There’s often a tendency for us to hurry through transitions. We may feel that these transitions are, ‘nowhere at all’ compared to what’s gone before or what we anticipates next to come. But you are somewhere, you are ‘between.'”September is a time of transitions for many of us. Children transition to a new grade, and teachers transition to a new group of students. College students transition to living in a dorm on campus and parents transition to empty nests. For many churches, September is also a time of transitions, the beginning of a new Sunday school season, often the gearing up of church activities, Bible studies, stewardship campaigns, committee meetings and the business of the church after a restful break for the summer.Many of us are thrown by transitions. They seem an awful lot like that dreaded word “change.” I wonder if we too looked at the transitions of our lives as “in between opportunities” we might be more open to them and would embrace them.Mr. Rogers finished his lesson by saying, “Sometimes it surprises me to think that my work on that first children’s program was almost by chance! Isn’t it mysterious how so many wonderful things in life come to us seemingly without our planning? We start traveling down one street, and we find ourselves interested in something we never expected on a side street, and as we explore it, the side street becomes the main street for us.”As we enter the transition times of our lives, may we have the patience not to hurry through, but to take our time and experience the plans that God has for us. None of us can go back and make a new start, but we can all begin today and make a new ending. Trust in the words from Jeremiah 20:11-13, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”The Rev. Bonnie M. Orth is the pastor of the Mayfield Central Presbyterian Church and the pastoral care coordinator at Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home.
Congratulations Donita Crankshaw, Goodwill Award recipient Posted on September 9, 2014September 9, 2014 by Dakota PikeCrankshaw receives NLH awardAugust 28, 2014Leader HeraldGLOVERSVILLE – Primary and Specialty Care Center Manager Donita Crankshaw was nominated as the Nathan Littauer Hospital & Nursing Home Goodwill Award recipient for the second quarter.“Of our 1,000 employees, these are people that our employees themselves want to honor,” said Littauer CEO Laurence Kelly in a news release. “These are the best of the best; they deserve our recognition for their incredible impact on NLH and patient care.”Crankshaw proved early in her 15-year tenure at Littauer that she was somebody very special, Kelly said in the release.Crankshaw was nominated by her peers for her respectful demeanor and vast knowledge, coupled with her compassion and sincerity while dealing with patients and co-workers, the release said.Upon receiving the award, Crankshaw accepted while thanking her peers. “I share this award with my staff and the providers; they give 100 percent to me, and make me a better person,” she said in the release.The NLH Goodwill award is given out quarterly and once annually to an employee, recognizing goodwill and promoting “people caring for people,” the release said. Crankshaw received a plaque on the NLH Hall of Fame, a monetary award and a preferred parking space.Recipients for the award are nominated by NLH employees, providers or patients, and submitted to the Goodwill Committee, where in a blind format they are selected. Quarterly employees are among other nominations for the NLH Goodwill Employee of the Year.PHOTO:Nathan Littauer Hospital & Nursing Home Goodwill Award winner of the second quarter, Primary and Specialty Care Center Manager Donita Crankshaw. Photo submitted
