Generosity Happens Here
The Hennepin Healthcare Foundation has the honor of connecting the generosity of the community to the mission of Hennepin Healthcare. Discover how we can help our community thrive together.
Campaign Priorities
Support Our Healthcare Heroes
We continue to answer the call for COVID-19 vaccination, testing, care, and recovery; to respond to community unrest and trauma; and to provide daily healthcare and prevention. We are thankful for the outpouring support from the community we are so proud to serve.
Contributions take many forms from financial to offering a word of encouragement. Visit our Hennepin Heroes webpage for ways to support our frontline staff and patients and read stories from the field.
Babies can’t wait. Neuroscience has shown the brains of babies and young children are shaped by the everyday experiences with parents and caregivers.
But we know that mothers and fathers can struggle with mental health symptoms during pregnancy and when parenting young children.
The Redleaf Center for Family Healing will serve pregnant and postpartum mothers, fathers, and families with children ages 0 – 5 through multi-generational mental health and parenting support, and mind-body-spirit approaches to healing.
Programming will help families thrive by supporting the well-being of adult caregivers while also expanding their capacity to nurture, protect, and delight in their children in ways that support their long-term development.
Fundraising Highlights
Generosity Highlighted
"Don't take your organs to Heaven. Heaven knows we need them here."
April is Donate Life Month
WHY I GIVE: Eugenia Steffens, RN, Director of Transplant Services
I’ve spent the vast majority of my nursing career in kidney transplant. I joined Hennepin Healthcare in 1991 as a Transplant Coordinator. There are a variety of roles you can serve as a nurse in this field. You can focus on the pre-transplant efforts: confirming the ability of a patient to receive a transplant, providing education on the process, and monitoring their health while they are on the waiting list.
Then there are the nurses who bridge the inpatient and outpatient process. They work with patients once they receive a transplant, prepare them for life with a new kidney, and bridge them to the outpatient setting. Finally, the post-transplant nurses follow the patient after discharge and for the rest of their kidney’s life.
On-call Coordinators have the honor of calling a patient when a kidney is available and actually follow the kidney and donor into the operating room. We also employ a Living Donor Coordinator who works with people who would like to donate their kidneys. She works with them through the whole process and ensures separation from the individual receiving the donated kidney. In all cases, you really built a long-term relationship with the transplant patient and their family members. It’s truly the most rewarding part of the work and why we stay in this profession for decades.
There have been a lot of enhancements over the years. New medications have drastically reduced the number of infections and deaths from those infections, and there are faster recovery times for both the recipient of a kidney and a living donor. I decided a few years ago to donate my kidney to a relative. That fell through, but my desire did not. My kidney donation ended up being part of a chain reaction. My kidney went to a patient at the U of M, and then there was an organ donor there who benefitted a patient at Hennepin Healthcare.
I received really great care and recovered quickly. The only sign I ever feel or see of my donation is a few small scars. I don’t miss my second kidney. There is a saying I like to share, “Don’t take your organs to Heaven. Heaven knows we need them here”.
In addition to the nurses, a big multidisciplinary team makes these miracles happen, from the pharmacists, surgeons, nephrologists, dietitians, social workers, to the folks in finance. I’m honored to be a part of this department and a part of so many lives now renewed through the generosity of others.