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Finck
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center, which started in 2008 and took eight years, largely because the hospital was in the process
of being merged into a larger, still-undetermined healthcare group.
Later, she would get involved with Friends of Cooley Dickinson (formerly the hospital auxiliary), which this year is celebrating its 120th anniversary.
The group runs the hospital’s coffee and gift shops, conducts events, places art throughout the hospital (which can be purchased, with some of the proceeds going to Friends), and stages several fundraising events, including an annual Trees of Love event in the Healing Garden and an arts-and- crafts auction.
It has grown and gained new energy under Finck, who was recruited to be its president, as Trinchero explained in her nomination.
“She blends a respect for traditions and history of the auxiliary with a dynamic ability to manage change,” she wrote, “thus keeping long-standing auxilians and volunteers involved, while recruiting new members to reinvigorate the group.”
A ‘Giving’ Person
Finck’s passion for supporting CDH is in many ways personal.
To explain, she turned back the clock 20 years to when she arrived home at 2 a.m. after attending an insurance event.
“All the lights were on in the house,” she said. “My husband ... I thought he was having a heart attack. He was pale; he was sweating. He said, ‘I sat up, I walked, and something was definitely wrong.’”
“
She took him to the ER at CDH, where X-rays were taken.
“You know it’s bad when they call you back
right away,” she said, adding that tests revealed
a huge mass in his chest, which turned out to be the largest bronchogenic cyst that anyone involved with removing it had ever seen. Finck said those
at CDH (this was pre-merger days) fast-tracked
her husband to Beth Israel Hospital and its head thoracic surgeon.
“We were just average people coming in with a problem,” she said, adding that, around that time, she was doing what she called minor fundraising for the hospital. She was good friends with Mike Kittredge, the founder of Yankee Candle, who passed away several years ago, who offered to make some phone calls on her behalf. She said that wouldn’t be necessary.
“The hospital took us under their wing, shipped us to Boston, and got it squared away. He had a six- month recovery, but he’s 100%,” she went on. “We were no one special, and that’s the point — they
treat everyone like that.”
Repeat evidence to this effect has inspired
Finck as she has taken on the lead in fundraising campaigns and her work with Friends, both of which she finds rewarding and fulfilling.
Especially the fundraising.
As she mentioned earlier, it isn’t easy asking for money — for anything and at any time — but when the cause is good, the assignment is easier. And when it comes to the campaigns at CDH and their purposes — from the cancer center to the ER to the childbirth center — the impact on the community is enormous.
Getting back to the art and science of making the ask, and getting individuals and institutions to commit, she said it comes down to being honest, persistent, and, above all, a true believer in the cause.
“When taking on a project, you must believe in the project and then research its impact to people and the community,” she explained. “Timing is essential for the ask, as is listening to the people you are talking to. After the ask ... follow up, and then
even more follow-up is mandatory, but the most important part is a ‘thank you’ — regardless of the outcome.”
Finck has become quite proficient at all of this, and that’s just one of many reasons why she’s a Woman of Impact. BW
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