Chris Rollins (left to right), chief development officer at Samaritan; Roy Fazio and Cliff Mancine, co-chairs of Drive FORE! A Good Cause; and Samaritan’s president and CEO Phillip Heath at the organization’s annual golf tournament on June 23.
Samaritan’s 35th annual golf tournament Drive FORE! A Good Cause helped support the organization’s services on June 23 at Little Mill County Club in Marlton.
The event had 200 participants this year and was presented by the Richardson Family Dealerships. The 18-hole, scramble-format tournament also featured an awards reception and dinner and an online auction, as well as an appearance by the Phillie Phanatic.
The Lexus Champions for Charity – sponsored by Lexus of Cherry Hill – also made a return to this year’s event, giving golfers an exclusive chance to play at Pebble Beach in California.
The tournament is something that Samaritan CEO and president Phillip Heath looks forward to every year.
“For me, it’s almost eight years of wonderful community interaction and professional interaction,” he said. “And to see the community’s commitment and love for the work that we do, as well as for the joy of the game … it’s great.
“As we raise awareness around the work that we do, people get excited,” he added. “They learn new things that we’re doing that’s different from the past.”
Founded in Moorestown in 1980, Samaritan was one of the first hospices in the country and is now one of the state’s leading providers of hospice care, palliative (comfort) medicine, at-home primary care, grief support and other services. The one message Heath emphasizes is that Samaritan provides all-around care.
“Samaritan is more than just hospice,” he explained. “We’re really serving the community in a great way, and particularly the frail and elderly in our community and those who are most vulnerable, so we’re there to support them.”
Now in its 45th year, Samaritan, Heath said, continues to grow its health-care services.
“We’ve evolved as health care has evolved,” he noted. “We’ve evolved as our community has evolved, and I believe that today we’re continuing to be thought leaders in the area of end-of-life care (and) in the area of serious-illness care and helping people to reconnect through social connections.”
