eNews
Volume 10 | August 14th, 2020
How do you get a new Museum built?
Money of course! Lots of it!
$5 million to be specific was what was needed for the first two construction phases of the new Army Medical Museum at Fort Sam Houston. When the original Foundation members began the campaign in 1979 to build  the Medical Museum to house the collection that had overgrown the current basement location, they began at the beginning with raising the funds.
Looking back over the original capital campaign of the early 1980s, you will find a myriad of fundraising efforts with included:

• events,
• personal and organizational pledges,
• memorial funds, and
• donations of Army medical artifacts. 
Events included bake sales, Beat the General/Colonel Runs at Army Medical Activities around the globe - there was even a Beat the Surgeon General Run with TSG Mittermeyer gamely pounding the pavement.
Units participated in what became annual Combat Medic Memorial 10Ks and mini-marathons across the Army. There was even a Polar Bear Run at Ft Dix, and of course, volksmarches in Germany.
Organizations that stepped forward with donations of funds included the Fort Sam Houston Thrift Shop, the Myra Stafford Pryor Trust Fund, Ft Hood MEDDAC, and Veteran groups like the 9th Army HQs Association given in honor of their WWII Commander Gen. William Hood Simpson. The BAMC Officer Dining-In raised money from the evening’s “fines”, while the Academy of Health Sciences Women’s Club, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Women’s Overseas Service League, graduating classes of the Academy, and Eisenhower National Bank all presented checks to the early efforts. The Retired Army Nurse Corps made a significant donation of $50,000 towards the Museum’s Library. 
Even local TV station, KLRN, and San Antonio The Magazine ran ads supporting the fund drive for the Museum’s construction.

The NCOs of the then Health Services Command pledged $50,000 towards the NCO Courtyard that graces the center of today’s Museum. Their fund raising included NCO Dining-Ins, more runs, personal donations, sales of 10th Anniversary HSC pewter belt buckles, softball tournaments, and family fun days at various posts.

Army medical personnel and their family members, along with civilians, donated an amazing scope of historical medical items including an antique medical exam table, an early 1900’s laryngoscope, the first heart-lung machine ever used by the Army, and uniform items from every period. More about the early artifact collections in future eNews. 
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AMEDD Medical Museum Foundation | (210) 226-0265 | ameddmuseumfoundation.org
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