Philanthropy News from The Miriam
On June 19, The Miriam Hospital opened a TIME CAPSULE sealed into the cornerstone of The Miriam Hospital’s second building nearly 75 years ago by then-board president Benjamin Brier.
Those in attendance witnessed history come full circle as Benjamin’s grandson, Jeffrey G. Brier, former chairman of The Miriam Hospital (2004–2008), joined Hospital President Maria Ducharme, DNP, RN to reveal what’s been waiting inside all these years. This special event also marked the official start of demolition for our hospital building replacement project — beginning with the cornerstone’s removal.
On October 30, 2024, The Miriam Hospital Foundation hosted its Annual Meeting and Miriam People Celebration of Tradition at the Providence Marriott. The event was attended by more than 135 guests, who were eager to celebrate the power of philanthropy, recognize the impact of legacy supporters, and get the latest news and updates about their beloved hospital.
Celebrating philanthropy
Susan H. Kaplan, Chair of The Miriam’s Foundation Board of Trustees, kicked off the evening expressing gratitude and reiterating her deep appreciation for the hospital’s supporters.
“I’ve said on more than one occasion that philanthropy is the special sauce that takes a great hospital and makes it an incredible one, and nowhere is this more evident than at The Miriam,” she explained. “Our donors simply love the hospital and stop at nothing to ensure its quality of care remains second-to-none.”
Michael Savit is a generous supporter of The Miriam. Since 2002, he and his family have sponsored the HWS Golf Classic, an annual charity tournament that has raised approximately $2 million for the hospital’s research to find a cure for myelofibrosis—a rare blood cancer that took his father’s life in 1995. To honor his legacy, Michael, his brother, Jeffrey, and their mother, Sybil, established the Herbert W. Savit Research Fund.
Now, more than two decades later, he’s endowing different research also inspired by a family member’s health crisis. “My son, Matthew, 31 at the time, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2021,” Michael explains. “Fortunately, he’s been treated, his cancer has been in remission for a year-and-a-half, and he’s doing great. But the experience really hit home for me and my family.” So much so, Michael began to look for ways he could help in the fight against this complex cancer of the immune system that can often affect younger people, like his son.
For Michael, Managing Partner of the HWS Group, a sports management firm that owns and operates professional sports franchises, that meant teaming up with The Miriam once again—this time, with Thomas Ollila, MD.
A hematologist-oncologist with a focus on lymphoma, including clinical and translational research, Dr. Ollila is currently engaged in early-stage but promising work at The Miriam. He is collaborating with the Brown University-based Bailey Lab, which studies the role of genetic variation in immunity and disease. The goal: to develop a novel technique for finding and tracking Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“We know you can find DNA for Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the blood,” Dr. Ollila says, “and by identifying and tracking it earlier and with more precision, we’ll be better able to employ more targeted immunotherapies and offer much safer treatment options.”
On the latter point, Dr. Ollila says his research is intended to combat the “over-treatment” of patients by reducing their need for biopsies, chemotherapy, and PET scans. All are proven to be valuable and effective, he says, but can also come with serious side effects—heart damage, increased risk of infection, neuropathy, and infertility, to name a few.
In his research, Dr. Ollila is using molecular inversion probes as a sequencing approach to locate and identify genes in the blood associated with Hodgkin’s lymphoma—and he’s grateful for the philanthropy that’s helping to fund his mission.
“Michael’s gift is making our work possible by covering the upfront cost of the probes and other integral supplies,” he says, “and will help us save lives down the road.”
Michael encourages others to support The Miriam, too. “If you have the means, by all means you should,” he says. “You won’t be disappointed. The people at The Miriam have been great to work with for over 20 years now and you’ll be helping a lot of people.”