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Dr. I.O. Silver who is Larry's father was
a family physician in Steelton and he
really because of his involvement in the
area for decades especially with all the
sports teams had Steel High and even
some of the professional sports teams
was essentially a legend in the area in
the mid 1990s right after Larry's father
died he wanted to start a foundation and
he called it the I.O. Silver Foundation in
honor of his father and since his father
had died of cardiovascular disease that
foundation wanted to raise money for
heart related issues for patients in the
central Pennsylvania area he put
together a board of directors to help
him start this foundation and they
started to have events to raise money in
support of heart patients we found out
about that and said well if you're going to
support heart patients why not have it
done at Penn State the first project was
to take our outpatient office and to
reconstruct the office in a way that
would commit to the integration of care
so we had heart surgeon seeing patients
in the same office as the vascular
surgeon in the same office as the adult
cardiologists and we could even have
integrated clinics such as heart failure
clinics and transplant clinics and
vascular disease on and on arrhythmia
clinics and and have
I'd be seeing a patient with chest pain
I could go around the corner and get one
of my colleagues who opened arteries and
have them see the patient there were
surgeons there's so if I saw a patient that
needed a valve replacement I could
introduce the patient and show the films
to the surgeon and we actually dedicated
that once the construction was done it's
the I.O. Silver Clinic.
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Larry been doing fundraising for the HVI for many
years, initially was doing fundraising
by having local races here in the
Hershey area some 5k runs and then when
he switched and started doing the
fashion show is when I got involved and
got interested I think there's two parts
of being on the planning committee that
I liked one part of being able to get
things for the silent auction you know
going out and getting things that I
thought were neat or work something that
I would like to have and would like to
bid on and to donate those then for for
the auction and then the second part was
getting the patient speakers to come to
the fashion show we always had somebody
who had been a patient in the HVI who
had benefited from our care the
expertise of our physicians and our
nurses and the the equipment that the
money for use for that Dr. Silver had
helped fund
I always knew the I.O. Silver Foundation
was a big contributor but I didn't
actually meet Larry Silver until the
past year when I was asked to speak at
his fashion show
and it was neat meeting him because he told
me the legacy of his father I.O. and I
often wondered if he knew the legacy
that he is now leaving behind for future
generations as well. In 1989 I was
diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy it
was a sudden illness I had previously
been healthy and up until that point and
I was brought to Hershey Medical Center
where they determined that I needed a
heart transplant to survive at that
point for the next 27 years I've
received my care here at Hershey Medical
Center and I received my cardiac care at
the I.O. Silver Clinic and because of the
donations that have come in in the
fundraising efforts that Dr. Silver has
done I've been able to lead a healthy
life a normal life with my husband and
my children. Over the last couple of
years our department has been involved
in a project to help schools learn how
to do CPR in a very short timeframe
about a 30-minute class so we have this
kit that can be taken to the schools and
it basically is a plug-and-play it's
ready to go and this year the number of
schools that applied for our program
exceeded our funds that were available
so we are very very grateful that
someone put us into touch with the I.O.
Silver Foundation and through that
generosity we were able to meet the need
for every school that applied for the program
this year so with those funds and funds
we had available from Children's Miracle
Network we were able to place kits in 22
different schools in our area and for
the life of our project we're now in 66
schools so we just really want to say a
big thank you to the I.O. Silver
Foundation for making that possible
and for improving the health and the
safety of those schools and of our community
thank you so much. We've been receiving
foundation money for really now over two
decades and well over a million dollars
of money has gone to our heart program
and as we evolved from a cardiovascular
center to a Heart and Vascular Institute
over ten years ago
the theme was still the same the
integration of cardiac related care for
patients this has had a big impact on
our education and on the care of the
patients in our cardiovascular product line. I'm
here to thank Larry Silver for his
efforts over the last decade or so to
help the Heart and Vascular Institute
through the I.O. Silver Foundation the
fashion show that Larry has established
has been an outstanding event that has
grown every year we're really delighted
to have been a partner with Larry
perhaps this has gone on more years than
either of us care to remember
but in all seriousness Larry has been a
great colleague and we're very
appreciated of everything he's done
for the Heart and Vascular Institute
I would like to say thank you Thank You
Larry for the time that you have taken
and invested over the years as a
physician yourself and carrying on your
father's legacy
caring for people like me who without
people like you wouldn't be here and so
I want to thank you I hope that you
enjoy a time relaxing now and thank you
for involving me in the fundraising
efforts
Larry working with you was just the
greatest every year I knew that the
luncheon you Rita planned was going to be
the best the money raised going to save
lives you always work with me so closely
and led all of us every step of the way
I congratulate you on a job well done
I hope I get to work with you again on
something anything thank you for letting
me be part of such important work
Larry congratulations on decades of
helping us out here at the Penn State
Heart and Vascular Institute I'm sorry
that I'm not going to be here during the
presentation but we are actually going
to be in St. Paul reviewing new medical
equipment for our patients which is very
important all of us at the Penn State
Heart and Vascular Institute appreciate all
that you've done for us it's really
impacted on the quality of care that we
have given to our patients to the
education of our fellows residents and
students we really appreciate your
friendship over the years thank you very
much
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