Middle Park Health’s fifth annual Spring BASH fundraiser brought in more donations on the night of the event than any past year, raising money for a new cancer center and local scholarships.
The March fundraiser officially collected $66,251 in donations for the hospital and introduced a new executive director, Andy Randzavich, to the Middle Park Medical Foundation, the hospital’s nonprofit.
“(We’re) grateful to the many people who made BASH 2020 an amazing success,” said Tiffany Freitag, director of community relations for Middle Park Health. “It’s exciting to be in a place where we need a full-time director for the foundation … and it’s a great time for Andy to join because the hospital is at such a vital turning point.”
In his foundation role, Randzavich is leading the work on Middle Park Health’s goal of building a local cancer treatment center at the Granby campus. Of this year’s donations, around $47,000 is going to the project.
“We believe that building a local center will alleviate a lot of physical and mental stress brought on by traveling for this treatment,” Randzavich said. “I think this is something the community really cares about.”
With the money from this year and last year’s BASH fundraiser, Randzavich said almost $100,000 has been raised for the project, which the hospital hopes to fund exclusively with donations.
Beyond an oncology center, the BASH donations also went to local scholarships for education in health care.
“Since BASH has ended, we’ve actually awarded over $20,000 to Middle Park Health employees and Grand County high school students,” Randzavich said.
Randzavich added the foundation plans to host a September golf tournament fundraiser this year to continue raising money for the cancer center.