June 8 Duck Derby at SwedishAmerican Hospital to benefit local charities

Online Staff Report

At 11 a.m., Friday, June 8, Dr. Bill Gorski, president and CEO for SwedishAmerican, will go wading in the fountain at the State Street entrance to SwedishAmerican Hospital, 1401 E. State St., Rockford.

Gorski’s task will be to choose 12 ducks that have been adopted. He will select a number of ducks for a variety of prizes. The proceeds raised will go toward Patriot’s Gateway and SwedishAmerican’s Employee Disaster Fund. The foundation will match all ducks sold. There is the potential for each charity to receive $1,300.

The ducks were adopted in conjunction with SwedishAmerican’s Founder’s Week celebration. All the ducks were sold for a total of $1,300. The SwedishAmerican Foundation matched that number, so each local charity will receive a check for $1,300 on Friday morning, June 8.

Representatives from Patriot’s Gateway and SwedishAmerican will be on hand to watch Dr. Gorski, in waders and blindfolded, choose the 12 ducks. Dr. Gorski and John Mecklenburg, executive vice president of the SwedishAmerican Foundation, will then present the organizations with their checks. Giving Back to the Community is just one of the activities held during the week.

SwedishAmerican is a not-for-profit, locally governed health care system, with headquarters in Rockford. The health system is composed of two hospitals, 30 clinics, a home health care agency, a foundation, and has an exclusive affiliation with UW Health in northern Illinois.

Posted June 7, 2012