The 29th Annual Mount Nittany Health Golf Classic raised a record-breaking $206,000, which will support the new cardiovascular pavilion at the medical center.
Held Aug. 10 at the Penn State Golf Courses, the annual outing has now raised more than $2.5 million for programs and equipment at Mount Nittany Medical Center. This year’s total goes toward the $1 million goal the Golf Classic committee has set to raise for the cardiovascular pavilion by 2020. To date it has raised $856,000.
“We are overwhelmed by the generosity of our community,’ Melissa August, interim executive director of Mount Nittany Health Foundation, said in a news release. ‘The record-breaking donations speak to the importance of expanding access to healthcare for those who trust us with their heart.”
The $15 million, 26,000-square-foot cardiovascular pavilion, which will be located above the emergency department, is scheduled to open in September after a little more than a year of construction. It will include updated cardiac catheterization and electrophysiology labs, an EKG exam room, stress test exam rooms, patient bays and meeting areas and updated technology.
Mount Nittany opened the county’s first and only cardiac catheterization lab in 2000 and added interventional services and stents in 2007. The cardiovascular team — which consists of medical professionals from Mount Nittany Physicians Group, Geisinger and Penn State Health — has responded to nearly 1,000 heart emergencies and performs more than 6,600 tests per year to treat conditions from abnormal heart rhythms to heart attacks.
This year’s Golf Classic drew 206 golfers and had the support of more than 120 volunteers.
Team prizes for each flight were awarded to the top 16 teams placing 1-4 in both net and gross scores. The four first-place teams on the Blue Course and White Course were:
• First-place team gross score: Blue Course – Bill Savage, Dean Johnson, Joe Battista and George McMurtry
• First-place team net score: Blue Course – Tom Hallowell, Ed Bell, John Selfe and Carl Raup
• First-place team gross score: White Course – Wyatt Troxell, Josh Vasilko, Mike Verotsky and Dave Dentler
• First-place team net score: White Course – Bob Belinda, Barry Belinda, Curt Reese and Tim Kishbach
