MIDDLEBURY — A recent donation of $50,000 from two long-term supporters of Porter Medical Center has given a boost to an ongoing and vitally important project to relocate the Porter Pediatric Practice from its current location on Exchange Street to the Porter Medical Center Collins building. Upon completion of the project this fall, the Porter-owned pediatric practice will occupy the spaces in the Collins Building that have housed Middlebury Family Health and Rainbow Pediatrics.
The project will take place in stages. In mid-September, the Porter Pediatric Practice will relocate to a space in the Collins Building that had previously housed Rainbow Pediatrics. Concurrently, Middlebury Family Health will move out of another space in the Collins Building, where construction will take place to transform it into the second half of the new Porter Pediatric space. Middlebury Family Health will move into offices across town to the Exchange Street location now occupied by the Porter Pediatric Practice, essentially trading spaces.
“We are enormously grateful to these generous donors for recognizing the importance of this project to our community and our patients, and responding with this significant gift,” said Porter spokesperson Ron Hallman. “Having pediatricians on campus to support the work of caring for newborns in our birthing center will be an important step forward and we look forward to welcoming our pediatric colleagues to our campus in September.”

According to Hallman, the anonymous donors who provided this contribution have donated more than $1 million to Porter Medical Center over the last decade. “Support from our community friends has always been extremely important to our organization and has allowed us to accomplish many recent projects including Porter Express Care, the new Porter Cardiac Rehabilitation facility, the handicapped accessible ramp in front of the hospital and the end-of-life suites and short- term rehabilitation department at Helen Porter,” he said.
To help advance the long-term program of fundraising at Porter, the organization hired its first full- time development director late last year. Amy Bodette Barr will be leading the annual campaign this September to raise additional funds for the pediatric relocation project.
“It has been an exciting and humbling time to join Porter Medical Center as Director of Development. During the early days of the pandemic, I had the privilege of witnessing, first-hand, the many expressions of appreciation and support our community bestowed upon our local hospital and nursing home. I look forward to harnessing all that goodwill by helping our donors connect with our organization and foster progress at Porter through philanthropy.”
This most recent donation comes on the heels of another $50,000 gift in June by the Porter Medical Center Auxiliary, which was given for general operating support of the organization to help fulfill its community mission.