Couple plans to give $1.5M to hospital

BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer

A Millstone Township couple is expected to make the largest donation in the history of CentraState Medical Center, Freehold Township, today.

According to James M. Goss, vice president of public relations and marketing, Robert and Donna O’Donnell will be donating $1.5 million to the medical center.

A ceremony will be held on the hospital grounds to announce the gift and to rededicate and rename the hospital’s Medical Arts Building in honor of Donna O’Donnell, according to Goss. The building houses the medical center’s Radiology and Oncology Department, as well as a diagnostic radiology suite and private physician offices.

Robert O’Donnell is a past president and CEO of the Community Bank of New Jersey, which was founded in Freehold Township and operated for several years before merging with Sun National Bank. O’Donnell’s wife is a former nurse, according to Goss. Goss said an unveiling ceremony (outdoors rain or shine) will be held at 10 a.m. to rename the Medical Arts Building. The family will also be introduced.

According to information on the CentraState Healthcare System Internet Web site, O’Donnell joined CentraState’s board of trustees in 2001. He serves as the chair of the finance committee, investment committee and Applewood Estates. He is a guest lecturer at Wharton Graduate School, serves as a director of the New Jersey Bankers Association and is chairman of the Community Bankers Committee of the New Jersey Bankers Association.

Although Goss did not reveal what project hospital directors plan to use the donation for, he did say they will announce a new large construction project that will be more than three times the size of the medical arts building.

Other recent hospital projects have included a $10 million upgrade of the emergency department in 2004. Also new is the Family Medicine Center’s Family Medicine Residency program, which began in April.

CentraState Healthcare System, which operates the hospital, is presently expanding Applewood Estates, a lifecare retirement community in Freehold Township.

“We do a lot of listening here,” Goss said. “We are giving people in our community what they want.”

CentraState Medical Center opened in 1971 as Freehold Area Hospital after almost a decade of fund-raising activities were held by western Monmouth County residents and municipal leaders. The hospital campus is a former farm on Route 537 (West Main Street).