For an all-women-owned financial services firm that thrives on relationships, the local community matters.
So when it came time to name the recipient of a special charitable gift in honor of their firm’s 25th anniversary, the choice was easy … and personal.
“Our vision of community is taking care of each other,” says Cheryl Patterson, co-founder. “Taking care of each other means we are our brothers’ – and our sisters’ – keepers. This is how we run our firm and it’s the legacy we seek to create with our gift to Cooley Dickinson’s new Breast Center.”
A Meaningful Gift
For Cheryl Patterson and partners Vikki Lenhart and Sue Patterson, the gift to the Breast Center was deeply personal. Their colleague, partner and friend, co-founder Lorraine Hart, had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. Through that experience, noted Cheryl Patterson, “we learned the importance of locally available services.”
Watching their partner go through a diagnosis of breast cancer and treatment heightened the women’s understanding of what mattered to them as donors. Hart, especially, had insight into what mattered from the patient’s perspective. One seemingly simple example of a well thought out center was “not having to run through the lobby with a johnnie on,” said Hart.
Touring the Center as it was being built and learning about the Center’s impact on thousands of community members made Cooley Dickinson an easy choice for Hart & Patterson’s generous gift.
“We felt that supporting the Breast Center is the perfect way to show our appreciation by helping individuals prevent and fight breast cancer,” added Vikki Lenhart.
“We asked ourselves, ‘how many people can we touch?’ It is our great honor to offer this support on behalf of all of us at Hart & Patterson,” said Patterson. “The Breast Center will be a tremendous asset to our community.”