Land Donation Part of Couple’s Love of Adena Greenfield Medical Center

For Mike and Linda Penn, the ongoing expansion and renovation of Adena Greenfield Medical Center (AGMC) is very personal.

Mike’s mother once worked as a nurse at the hospital, and prior to her retirement in 2013, Linda herself had worked there for 35 years, having started there when it was known as Greenfield Municipal Hospital and was operating out of a house. She went through its initial expansion when it became Greenfield Area Medical Center and then was involved in fundraising for its most recent prior expansion – the addition of its modular medical office building – once the hospital joined the Adena family in the late 1990s.

Now, she finds herself involved in multiple ways with Adena Health Foundation’s fundraising effort for the current project, which involves construction of a new medical office building that, unlike the existing one it is replacing, will be placed under the same roof as the remainder of the hospital.

“When they started this project, they called me and asked if I’d like to head up the Foundation efforts for Greenfield,” Linda said. “Mike and I talked about it and he encouraged me to do it, saying that I had been involved in fundraising for a hospital expansion once before and I know a lot of people in the community, so I agreed to do that as long as it wasn’t just me.”

The Foundation agreed, getting Ellie Zint to join her in a leadership role for Greenfield’s arm of the organization. That arm was created around two years ago in preparation for the expansion project, but Linda said it will continue serving the hospital even after the work is completed.

Besides heading up the fundraising effort for the Foundation, Mike and Linda found another way to contribute. Their company, Greenfield Research, owned three parcels of land totaling more than a third of an acre just south of the existing Adena parking lot across from the southwest corner of the hospital. Knowing that a likely eventual hospital expansion would create a need for additional parking, the couple had turned down other offers to purchase the parcels located along Pine Street in case the hospital would want them.

“We always said if we were going to sell it to anybody, it would be Greenfield’s hospital,” Linda said. “In fact, when they started this renovation project, Josh (McCoy, Vice President of Adena’s West Region and Senior Operations Executive Officer at AGMC) and I started talking about a few things and he wanted to build money into the budget to buy that parking lot because they were going to need it. One thing led to another and I came home and Mike and I talked about it and decided we want to contribute to the project and what if we just give them the parking lot as part of our contribution.”

The decision was made and the land was transferred to Adena, bringing the total parking space in that location when combined with the existing lot to just shy of an acre.

The $3 million, 8,500-square-foot hospital expansion project is currently on pace to be completed in time for a September opening. It offers several benefits, including new technology and equipment, spacious exam rooms, enhanced patient privacy and convenience, additional patient parking, a more efficient layout expected to decrease patient wait times, a pharmacy and the type of flexibility inside the hospital to allow for future growth in providers and services.

In recent months as construction work has continued, AGMC has added gastroenterology services, ramped up efforts around cardiology services and added pediatric services. The new space and technology, once completed, is expected to enhance existing services in cardiology, general surgery, neurology, OB/GYN, pain management, podiatry, sports medicine, urology and wound care. It also opens the door to exploring new services in areas such as pulmonology, mental health, ear, nose and throat (ENT) and others.

Mike and Linda said they hope residents understand the importance of the hospital to the local area.

“Greenfield is a small community, but it has a lot of really positive things going on,” Linda said. “Our school is one of them, and the hospital is another one. It is really important to the community and we’re excited that they are enlarging and renovating and adding new equipment and services.”

Citing quality service offerings such as its rehabilitation unit, noting the fact that it has brought good-paying jobs to the community, pointing to its availability in providing services such as flu shots for local employers and stressing the convenience of having available health care so close to home, the couple is encouraging those who haven’t yet contributed to the project to consider doing so. Mike and Linda also are reminding people that when they make a donation to the Adena Health Foundation, they can earmark that donation to go toward the Adena Greenfield project.

The couple hopes others may feel about AGMC the way they do.

“It goes back to that’s where our heart is,” Linda said.

Find out how you can donate to the Adena Greenfield Medical Center expansion project by calling 740-779-7528 or emailing foundation@adena.org.