More than a hospital
 

The mantra of selfless charity crowned the Schmidt Family Foundation of Boca Raton with the distinction of giving the largest gift ever to a community hospital and the third-largest among all hospitals and health systems in the United States. So, it is fitting that the new hospital, expected to be completed in 2011 on 38 acres of the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University, will be named the Charles E. Schmidt Medical Center.



As a testament to the late benefactor's generosity, the hospital will not be the first building on the FAU campus to bear his name. The Charles E. Schmidt Biomedical Science Center encompasses 90,000 square feet of classrooms and laboratories. And the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters, named after Mr. Schmidt's wife, was dedicated in 1992.



The Schmidt Family Foundation's latest gift adds another historic twist to the hospital's and FAU's vision for establishing a teaching hospital that can serve Palm Beach County and the surrounding area. In June, the school and hospital announced a partnership with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine that would allow medical students to remain for four years at FAU, receiving a UM medical degree without having to leave Boca Raton. Especially promising is the potential of the teaching hospital to produce and retain new physicians to help alleviate the much-documented nationwide shortage of specialists - a deficit that is particularly acute in Palm Beach County.



The gift will build a hospital twice the size of the current facility, with 530 private patient rooms. The foundation plans to pay $40 million in 2008, with the balance paid over an unspecified number of years. Even at $40 million, the donation surpasses by double the largest previously announced gift to a hospital in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.



Insurance executive Christine Lynn - like Mr. Schmidt, a Boca Raton Community Hospital board member - set a record in 2005 with her $20 million donation to establish a heart institute. The center, the first new open-heart program in Palm Beach County in 22 years, opened in September.



The Schmidt Family Foundation grew from Charles Schmidt's mail-order tractor parts business. Likewise, the $75 million donation shows the power of vision and local commitment. "What we see here today," Boca Community CEO Gary Strack said during the announcement Tuesday, "is a gift of love." Yes, and it is the sort of transformational gift that any institution in any part of the country would love to have. In this case, fortunately, the Schmidts' charity began at home.



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