Sara Dolan and April Clobes have gotten to know each other well while working together at Michigan State University Federal Credit Union for the past 15 years. So when each of them was considering making a leadership gift in support of a new $600 million hospital complex being built by McLaren Health Care Corporation on land adjacent to MSU, it seemed natural to combine their financial resources to maximize the impact of their giving.
“We believe it is our personal and professional responsibility to support philanthropy in our community to lift others up, and that’s why we are contributing,” said Dolan, chief financial officer for MSUFCU and a member of the McLaren Greater Lansing Foundation board of trustees. “Teaming up gave us the ability to do more than we could individually.”
Clobes, president and CEO of MSUFCU and a member of the hospital board, said it was important for her to show her appreciation for an organization she is “committed” to and feels “passionately” about.
The combined generosity of the MSU graduates will result in a $50,000 gift with a conference room in the new hospital being named in memory of Dolan’s sisters, Sandra and Lisa.
Sandra Cole, who was Sara’s identical twin, was 23 years of age when she passed away in 2001 due to heart issues, and younger sister Lisa Cole was 30 when she succumbed to breast cancer in 2010. Sara, a mother of four, was very receptive when Clobes proposed the idea of naming the conference room after them.
“Neither one of us really care about having our names attached to something,” she said, “so when April brought up naming the room after Sandra and Lisa, I agreed to it pretty quickly.”
Clobes views their gift as a way of giving back. She recalled times during her life when she “needed people in the community to lift” her up, and they supported her. She also feels a debt of gratitude to the Breslin Cancer Center at McLaren Greater Lansing, where her husband, Glen Brough, was previously treated for testicular cancer.
“We spent a lot of time there for about two years,” she said. “We are very appreciative of the care he received.”
Dolan enjoys using her talents to give back, and that is one of the reasons she is in her third three-year term on the Foundation board.
“It’s the core of who I am,” she said of her philanthropic endeavors. “And it’s one of the core values of who we are as a credit union. We want to give back and make this community the best it can be.”
For more information about the McLaren Greater Lansing Foundation and its Campaign for Care, please call (517) 975-7100, email mglfoundation@mclaren.org, or visit www.mclaren.org/lansingfoundation.