Here at Nova Medical Centers we believe giving back to our community is, not only important, but vital to who we are and what we believe as a company. We focus on providing exceptional, turnkey services for the health and wellness of America’s workforce, but it doesn’t stop there. The holidays can be difficult for families in our own communities and we wanted to do our part to give back.
To encourage employees, we issued a charity challenge to every Nova Medical Center clinic. They were asked to pick a charity near and dear to their hearts and get moving in gathering donations for that particular organization. Who will come out on top for their charity? We’ll have to wait and see!
Each clinic has until December 23 to complete the challenge. There will be a drawing to determine the ultimate winner, however, each clinic that takes part is already a winner in our book as they do their best to really make a difference in their communities.
Nova Location: Houston Med Center
Chosen Charity: Houston Area Women’s Center
We had a toy drive benefiting The Houston Area Women’s Center. All of our families participated. On Friday Dec. 11th after work, we all went together to drop off our donations. It feels really good to bless someone in need. The staff here has decided to make this an annual event! (Update 12/28: Houston Med Center was selected as the 2015 Charity Challenge Winner!)
Nova Location: DFW Denton
Chosen Charity: Denton Animal Shelter
Thanks to Nova for letting us choose a Charity near and dear to our hearts. We chose the Denton Animal Shelter this year because there are so many homeless animals that need love and care and a home as well as the humans. We called the Denton Animal Shelter and told them that Nova Medical Center’s are picking charities this year and we choose them and would like to donate what is needed for their shelter. Then my team here at Nova in Denton started bring in Food, and toy’s and blankets for those needy animals that are in need TLC.
Nova Location: Harlingen
Chosen Charity: Loaves N’ Fishes
Several members of the Nova-Harlingen team visited Loaves n’ Fishes to help serve an evening meal. Loaves n’ Fishes is a community center that assists the homeless and in-need residents in the lower Rio Grande Valley. We were primarily helping to serve and assist visitors in enjoying a great, home-cooked meal. We also helped the center’s staff members with cleaning and washing/drying dishes at the end of the day. It was a warm and wonderful environment, as a little effort and hard work is always a fair trade for hundreds of smiles!
Nova Location: Houston – Corporate Office
Chosen Charity: Texas Children’s Hospital
This year the Nova Corporate Office collected new books and small toys for the ‘Treasure Box’ at Texas Children’s Hospital. After children complete chemotherapy, they get to select a goodie from this box. It has been pure joy to be able to support this program and reward kids for their bravery during an extremely difficult time.
Nova Location: McAllen
Chosen Charity: Comfort House
Our McAllen Facility opted to visiting the patients at Comfort House in McAllen. Comfort House is a 10 bed NPO hospice facility that cares for patients who have four months or less to live. All services are free to the patient and the doors are open to the families 24/7. Each staff member contributed throw blankets, cleaning supplies, bottled water and 4 boxes of fruit to the patients and families. We made Christmas Cards and had a few high school orchestra students (violin and cello) give of their time to play some beautiful soothing Christmas music for the families and patients who are housed there. It was very touching, beautiful and rewarding. Makes one value life so much more. Afterwards, we joined a few family and staff members who shared Comfort Houses’s garden of angels. Those are memory stones with the names of the patients who were cared for by the staff and wonderful facility.
Nova Location: San Antonio Downtown
Chosen Charity: Haven For Hope
For our Charity Challenge our team here chose Haven for Hope right here in downtown San Antonio. Working at this location you see a lot of homeless people walk by and sometimes have to ask them to leave when they are asleep by your back door in the morning. We first noticed this charity based on people coming in. Haven for Hope gives people an address to put down to get jobs, so on many demographics that we enter in we notice the “1 Haven for Hope way”. So we looked them up a while back and saw what they do for families who are homeless. Total, we collected 14 bags of clothes, three full boxes of toiletries, and a lot of blankets, towels and comforters. We put signs in the lobby as well and put 2 big boxes to inform what and why we are doing this. Since we started we had quite a bit of patients bring stuff in little by little. We actually had to start bringing bags to the back because we were running out of room in the front. I was really surprise that patients themselves starting to get involved. We had a really fun time doing this and are more than sure we will do this again next year!
Nova Location: Houston East
Chosen Charity: A New Dawn Pet Adoption
We donated dog food, cat food and toys for the animals in need to A New Dawn Pet Adoption. We were very excited to see these pets have some love and food for Christmas.
*A big thank you to all the Nova clinics who took part in the 2015 Charity Challenge. Everyone did a fantastic job! A randomly selected winner was drawn on December 24. congratulations to Houston Med Center!
