Coachella Valley Responds to Haiti Disaster with $1-million in Aid

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif., Jan. 26 The H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation is committing $1-million for emergency and medical supplies to assist relief efforts in Haiti. The donation will be made to Eisenhower Medical Center, which is currently engaged in the relief effort through Eisenhower's Emergency Physician Raul Ruiz, MD, MPP, MPH. Dr. Ruiz will facilitate the donation to Samaritan's Purse®, a non-profit organization that has worked in Haiti for more than 30 years.

"Eisenhower Medical Center and Dr. Ruiz know through first-hand experience how to quickly and personally turn this donation into much needed supplies for the people who need it most," said Ron Auen, President of the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation. "We are pledging this money on behalf of the kind and giving citizens of the Coachella Valley."

"It brings tears of joy that the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation is helping the people of Haiti in such an incredibly generous manner," says Michael Landes, President, Eisenhower Medical Center Foundation. "We are honored to have been chosen as the channel through which their much needed funds will reach the people of Haiti with the help of Dr. Ruiz and Samaritan's Purse®."

Samaritan's Purse® has hundreds of people volunteering in Haiti and has already delivered six cargo flights of medical and emergency supplies to the devastated country since the magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit on January 12.

The H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation is a private foundation that generously supports educational and other charitable projects. Since 1988, the Berger Foundation has contributed over $300 million to charities throughout Southern California and the United States.

Eisenhower Medical Center is a not-for-profit, comprehensive health care institution rated among the Top 5% of all Hospitals in the Nation for Clinical Excellence in 2009 by HealthGrades®, a leading independent health care ratings organization.

Samaritan's Purse®, a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world.

SOURCE H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation; Eisenhower Medical Center