$13.5 Million Gift to Fund Senior Health Care

A $13.5 million gift from the Schmieding Foundation will provide for the building and operating of a new senior health and education center in Springdale.

The donation, announced April 5 by Lawrence H. Schmieding, CEO of the Springdale-based Schmieding Foundation, will make Northwest Health System, the Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging and Department of Geriatrics at University of Arkansas Medical Sciences and the Area Health Education Center partners in the new center.

The Schmieding Foundation has particular interest in projects for the young and the old, says spokesman Lance Taylor. But Lawrence Schmieding had a special interest in a project to benefit the elderly because of his own family’s experience in caring for an older brother, Bert Schmieding, Taylor says.

Kaye Reese, spokeswoman for Northwest Health, says Dr. Larry D. Wright, the area’s only geriatrician and current chief of staff at Bates Medical Center in Bentonville, will be director of the center. He will oversee two new geriatricians, Drs. Randy and Theresa Shinn, who are expected to join the staff in July after completing their training at UAMS.

Northwest currently has a senior clinic in Bella Vista but, with the Schmieding gift, will add another clinic in Springdale. The clinic will be housed temporarily at 606 Young St., a building owned by the health system and being renovated for this purpose.

But a new 20,000-SF building is planned. Construction, estimated to cost $3.3 million, is expected to be completed by spring 2001 and will probably be overseen by the Schmieding Foundation, Taylor says. Officials are considering a site on North Thompson Street in Springdale that is near the Schmieding offices, but details are still being worked out.

The remaining $10.2 million of the Schmieding grant is to operate health and education programs. The money will be paid out at the rate of about $500,000 annually for the next 20 years.