“Your generosity lifted a heavy burden from our shoulders and we just cannot thank you enough.”

Words from the heart bring life to the numbers that make up community benefit. For patients lacking health insurance, community benefit means financial help in a time of crisis. For children who have lost a loved one, community benefit is a week-long camp experience where it’s safe to share overwhelming feelings of loss on a journey towards healing. For future generations of patients, community benefit takes the form of the young student nurse starting to gain the knowledge and experience that will shape the future of health care.

At its heart, community benefit means different things to different people. In 2014, BJC and its hospitals and health service organizations provided more than $690 million in all forms of community benefit from free medical care and education of health professionals, to medical research funding and community health programs.

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