Page 8 - Innovation-Spring-2016

COMMUNITY CATALYSTS

Rancho Guadalupe continues the Donati family’s legacy
of leadership with Emergency Department Expansion gift

Every donation has a story. For Rancho Guadalupe, their story
of legendary support for Marian Regional Medical Center is
one that spans three generations.

Rancho Guadalupe’s unprecedented leadership gift
commitment of $500,000 in support of Marian’s Emergency
Services Expansion Project is the continuance of the Donati
family’s legacy of generosity that began more than 75 years ago.
It was 1939 when Louis (L.C.) Donati and other community
leaders from throughout the Santa Maria Valley united
together to raise $50,000 for the building of Santa Maria’s
very first hospital: Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Marian’s
predecessor.
Louis Donati was one of 100 community leaders who Richard (Dick) Donati with his father Clifford Donati in 1975.
spearheaded the capital campaign to secure crucial funding
for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Hospital. At the time, raising
$50,000 for the funding of a $130,000 hospital was a huge
undertaking for a community of only 8,000, but Louis and
the entire Santa Maria community understood that the entire
region desperately needed a local hospital. This tradition of
enduring community support would continue with Louis’ son,
Clifford Donati, and would later be passed on to Clifford’s
sons—one being Richard (Dick) Donati, founder and co-
owner of Rancho Guadalupe, LLC.
“My dad [Clifford] had a strong presence in the Santa Maria
community, and it is his leadership and our family tradition of
community philanthropy that inspired Rancho Guadalupe’s
recent support of Marian’s Emergency Services Expansion
Project,” explains Dick. “Rancho Guadalupe’s mission is to
foster a dynamic and thriving community through excellence
in growing vegetables, and as such, we are honored to support
this significant project.”

Rancho Guadalupe grows a wide range of commodities on
more than 2,700 acres. Along with co-owner James Wesner
and the leadership of General Manager AJ Cisney, Rancho
Guadalupe is making a profoundly positive difference in both
the local agricultural industry and the community at-large, Realizing the critical need to build Santa Maria’s first hospital, 100
as the company’s leadership level gift demonstrates their community leaders enlisted in the capital campaign to raise $50,000
from community donations. Louis (L.C.) Donati, Dick Donati’s grand-
commitment to both the medical center and the entire region. father, was one of these influential individuals who spearheaded the
initiative. Above is an excerpt from the 1939 capital campaign brochure.

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