‘You can't have a community hospital without the support of your community’

ROCHELLE — On Monday, the 23rd Annual Rochelle Community Hospital Foundation Golf Outing was held at Fairways Golf Course in Rochelle. 92 golfers braved rainy conditions in support of the hospital’s foundation, RCH Marketing, Foundation & Organizational Development Manager Michelle LaPage said.

Rain hit the area Sunday evening and continued through Monday, but the outing went on as planned. Last year’s RCH outing had to be rescheduled due to the golf course being too wet. 

“I'm really happy with how many people showed up and are golfing today,” LaPage said. “I would say we maybe had one or two teams that pulled out and that's it. It shows the support of our foundation and the hospital. This year's funds are going towards the Back to School kickoff that we did in August, so we'd like to continue to support the community that way.”

The Back to School kickoff event supplies the community with giveaways and health activities and was held for the second year in 2023. 

RCH CEO Karen Tracy called the annual golf outing “incredibly important” for working relationships with the hospital’s vendors and it allows for a more personal relationship with them with interaction that takes place outside of the office setting. Working on and playing in the outing also helps with team building for the RCH employees that participate, she said. 

"You can't have a community hospital without the support of your community,” Tracy said. “The fact that these vendors not only support us with the different products that they provide us, but they come and support this kind of an event, that just shows the relationships that we have with them and a community hospital is all about relationships. I hope everyone enjoys themselves in spite of the fact that it's probably not the best day for golf."

LaPage said putting on the outing requires about a month of preparation by herself, RCH staff and the foundation’s volunteer committee. 

“We started it 23 years ago and I think it's had some peaks and some valleys and we're back at a plateau again,” LaPage said. “Which is really good. There's still really good support from not only businesses in the community, but the vendors of our hospital. That's really nice to still have that support. We're also very excited to have a new Titanium sponsor in Spartan Truck Center. They're local and brought eight guys to golf, so that was exciting too.”

Tracy called the RCH Foundation “a very important piece” of the hospital’s business. 

“Internally we're working on operations and things like keeping the lights on and departments functioning,” Tracy said. “But the foundation can choose special projects, so I think that makes it really meaningful for the hospital to have them work for a dedicated purpose."