>Monday, June 16, 2008
BY EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITER, The Record
The Valley Hospital has received a $30 million gift from Ridgewood resident and philanthropist David F. Bolger.
The gift, announced today, is believed to be the largest single donation ever to a hospital in New Jersey, say hospital officials.
Audrey Meyers, President and CEO of hospital, called the gift “extraordinary.” A gift, Meyers said, that would benefit future generations.
Valley is planning a $750 million expansion that will include new buildings and a parking deck.
The money will be used for “whatever Valley says it needs,” Bolger said.
Bolger, 75, is President of Bolger & Company, Inc., a real estate and investment firm headquartered in the village. Bolger is president of The Bolger Foundation and a much lauded and major supporter of West Bergen Mental Healthcare.
This is not Bolger’s first donation to Valley Hospital. Several years ago his $1 million gift helped fund the expansion of the emergency department and the pediatric emergency room of the facility. He recently contributed to the hospital’s purchase of a portable CT scanner, the first hospital in the state to have the equipment, hospital officials say.
Bolger recently put plans and funding together to refurbish the Pease Library in Ridgewood, a 1920s era building that in its day was the crown jewel of Garber Square. A supporter of the Ridgewood, Glen Rock, and Midland Park libraries, Bolger has also supported numerous institutions and organizations in the area, including the William Paterson University School of Nursing; the Bergen County Chapter of Community Blood Center Services, The YMCA of Ridgewood, the School House Museum in the village and the Midland Park Ambulance Corps. He is known for putting forth challenge grants to institutions and churches.
The father of three children and four grandchildren, Bolger recently funded the refurbishing of “The Barn” community center for youth and senior citizens in Midland Park and is a trustee emeritus of The Kessler Foundation and honorary trustee for Children’s Aid and Family Services of New Jersey.
Bolger, whose parents emigrated from Holland, came from a working class background, shoveling snow, delivering papers, and serving as a firefighter in his native Sewickley, Pa. He attended prep school at the prestigious Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts – the recipient of several large donations from Bolger — and worked nights and weekends in a steel mill to graduate the University of Pittsburgh.
It was while working at the mill, Bolger has said, where numerous immigrant workers were generous enough to allow him to finish his homework when there was minimal work to do.
Soon after, Bolger landed a job as personal executive assistant for financier Thomas Mellon Evans. For 4 ½ years, he purchased companies, rolling stock, overseas property, and ran a Philadelphia hotel for his demanding boss.
He founded his own Bolger & Company in the early 1960s and moved the company from Hackensack to Ridgewood more than two decades ago.
His gift to Valley trumps the large donations to other hospitals.
In March, an investor and his wife pledged $25 million to the University Medical Center at Princeton to build a new facility in Plainsboro.
In April, Helena Theurer of Park Ridge gave $10 million to Hackensack University Medical Center to build a cancer center bearing the name of her late husband, John.
Over the last 17 years, radio personality Don Imus has contributed more than $30 million out of his own pocket and from fund-raising efforts for Hackensack. A pediatric treatment center, the Don Imus/WFAN Pediatric Center for Tomorrows Children, was named in his honor.