Love-Lights raise $2,600 for scholarships

SHAWANO — As might be fitting in a hospital, the celebration of the lighting of the ThedaCare Medical Center-Shawano Love-Light trees was hushed but heartfelt.

A small group gathered to light the trees, listen to a prayer, sing a few carols and share homemade Christmas cookies Tuesday evening.

The Love-Light trees, near the main entrance of the hospital at 100 County Road B, are an annual fundraising project of the TCMC-Shawano Auxiliary.

Love-Lights are $3 donations made in honor of the season or in someone’s memory. Trees are decorated with white bulbs for memorials, colored lights for living honorees and red, white and blue lights for veterans. This year, the project raised about $2,600 for scholarships, according to Elaine Gast, volunteer services specialist at TCMC-Shawano.

For the 2019-20 school year, the auxiliary awarded four $1,000 scholarships to students in their final year of post-high school education in a medical field. Recipients are: Molly Favor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, who hopes to practice in Minnesota or Wisconsin; Morgan Marquardt, a Tigerton High School graduate completing her nursing studies at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College; Morgan Klitzke, a Shawano Community High School graduate working on a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Winona State University; and Amanda Van Straten, a Clintonville High School graduate completing her studies in medical laboratory science at the University of Cincinnati.

Deb Fabry and Elizabeth Telford said that the hospital’s obstetrics department contributed Love-Light donations in memory of the 18 stillborn or miscarried babies at the hospital in the past year. While their goal is to have every baby born healthy, they understand how deep the loss is when a parent loses a child, Telford said.

In addition to individual donations, memorial donations were also made by Mickelson Funeral Home and Friends of Hospice.

cryczek@newmedia-wi.com