A successful grassroots fundraiser geared to funneling supplies to mental health patients at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is no more.
Music for the Mind, which in two years raised in excess of $92,000 for the adult in-patient mental health ward at CKHA, has played its final note and raised its final dollar.
Event creator Elisha Banks said she shuttered the fundraiser after realizing the funds the organization had raised in two years were gathering dust in a Foundation of CKHA bank account.
Banks wants to let her donor base know that the money she gathered did not go where she intended it to land.
“They deserve to know the truth; they deserve to know that the money they donated for the purpose of purchasing supplies for the patients on the unit will not be used for that. I definitely owe them that,” she said.
Banks said there was miscommunication with hospital officials and what she called a “breach of trust” with the Foundation.
“For two years, I believed the money was going to purchase supplies, but it wasn’t. It was left sitting at the foundation but not being used,” she said.
Mary Lou Crowley, executive director of the Foundation, said privacy legislation prevents her from discussing the details of individual donor agreements.
“We do have a signed agreement. It was clearly written out where the proceeds were to be directed with the signing off on the agreement,” she said. “There was never a miscommunication on the Foundation side with the signed agreement.”
Banks begs to differ. She said not once in two years was she told the funds would not be used for supplies. What she saw when she visited the unit last July surprised her.
“Prior to me going up there as a visitor, I believed that the money I was donating was being used to purchase supplies for the patients as that was the purpose for which it was donated,” Banks said. “During my time as a visitor, sitting in a friend’s room that was directly across from the inventory room, I saw patients turned away on three separate occasions because the unit did not have the supplies in stock. I am sure you can imagine how that made me feel considering the amount of money we had donated to the unit for the purpose of purchasing supplies.”
At that point, Banks said she reached out to the Foundation and the alliance to find “some much-needed answers.”
Lori Marshall, president and CEO of the CKHA, however, said while she can’t speak in regard to the Foundation, admitted there was a hiccup in communication between Banks and hospital administration, and is grateful Banks brought matters forward.
“There was a miscommunication. I am forever grateful for her to have brought the issue to us. Had she not, we might not have realized there is a gap here,” Marshall said of the funding shortfall for the needed items. “I had believed that we had communicated following that (the first Music for the Mind fundraiser where administration learned of the shortfalls in funding for the unit), but I didn’t have direct communication.”
Marshall said Banks’ dedication to supporting the in-patient mental health ward helped point out problems related to supplies in the ward, and added the matter has been addressed.
“I am forever grateful to Elisha for bringing attention to this issue through her efforts with the Music for the Mind, and also in connecting with the community on it,” Marshall said. “Essentially when she began the fundraising, it was identified that hospital staff were purchasing, on their own, supplies for patients in the adult mental health unit. I don’t think we realized that, as a hospital, this was happening.”
Marshall said all the supplies Music for the Mind gathered have either been utilized on the unit floor, or will be as needed.
Going forward, the purchase of supplies is now in the hospital budget.
“What we’ve done since then is made sure that there is an allocation in the budget for these items on an ongoing basis. We don’t want our staff to feel they have to purchase, and we don’t want the public to feel they have to donate,” she said of the supplies.
Administration has budgeted $10,000 annually to purchase the supplies.
Marshall said she personally went into the mental health unit and reviewed the situation.
“It’s clear they now have a process to make sure the items are replenished on a regular basis,” she said of things such as toothbrushes, toiletries, feminine hygiene products, and even clothing. “Ultimately this is a hospital responsibility. We want to be able to provide for our patients.”
Banks stressed she has nothing but respect for staff on the in-patient mental health ward. Her disagreements were with hospital management and the Foundation.
However, she is heartened to know the funds will, according to Marshall, be utilized to help pay for other needs in the ward.
“After the meeting with Lori Marshall in January, she assured me that, while the money is not going towards the supplies as it was supposed to, it will stay on the unit and will still be used to help the patients in need, just in other ways, as well as help to make some necessary improvements on the unit which, at the end of the day, is what is most important,” Banks said.
Marshall credited Banks and Music for the Mind for making a “significant financial contribution” to the Foundation. She said plans are in the work on how the Music for the Mind financial donation could be used in the mental health unit.
“There is going to be an announcement about where those funds will be allocated,” she said.
Banks became interested in supporting the patients in the ward after she spent 50 days there as a patient herself in 2019.
“It gave me a lot of time to really get a good idea for the needs on the unit. I got a good sense of the ongoing outflow of supplies being given to patients by the staff on the unit,” she said.
Banks said once she learned of shortages of personal hygiene products, art supplies, and clothing, she pledged to send support to the ward.
“I learned they relied on donations from the community and when that didn’t happen, staff took turns paying for supplies out of their own pockets. Initially, what I did was create this idea around doing a large supply drive,” she said.
After signing on as a donor with the Foundation of CKHA, Banks went to work, managing to send donated items to the floor, and cash to the Foundation.
But after two years of effort, she learned the funds raised weren’t spent.
Her only options were to remain signed up with the Foundation and raise funds over which she had no control over their destination, or sever ties.
She chose the latter.
Hospital and Foundation officials thanked Banks for her efforts.
“She has done an amazing job in both fundraising and raising awareness in an area that traditionally does not receive a lot in donations,” Marshall said.
