Happy Anniversary To Us

KHEIR celebrates with a Dohr party and the re-naming of its clinic

  

To mark the first anniversary of the new KHEIR facilities, the KHEIR Center celebrated with a Dohr party. A Dohr party is an ancient Korean tradition celebrating the official entry of a baby into the world. In the past, with limited advances in medicine and many childhood-related diseases, the infant mortality rate was extremely high in Korea. The KHEIR Center faced many challenges over the past year but was able to reach new milestones with the support of the community, especially from the S. Mark Taper Foundation.

KHEIR is proud to have survived its toughest year, but this could not have happened without the generosity of the S. Mark Taper Foundation.The Foundation attended the event to present KHEIR with a gift of $525,000. The gift is earmarked for the purchase of a state-of-the-art digital mammography and X-ray machine for its new Imaging Department. Breast cancer is the leading cancer diagnosis for Korean women, and Latino women continue to die of breast cancer disproportionately in comparison to other minority women. Despite this, both Korean women and Latinas maintain the lowest re-screening rates out of all ethnic groups in the country. Thanks to early detection, there are more than 2 million breast cancer survivors in America today and 95 percent of them experience a more than five-year survival rate.

Former Board Chairman Dr. Wilson Park; Ray Reisler, CEO of the S. Mark Taper Foundation; Erin Pak, CEO of the KHEIR Center; Board Member Bart Christensen; and KHEIR staff unveil a new plaque honoring the S. Mark Taper Foundation.

“Our clinic currently offers mammography screenings four times each month. With our own equipment available onsite, the community will have greater and easier access, which in turn will significantly increase the breast cancer screening rates of Koreans and Latinas in the area,” says KHEIR’s CEO Erin Pak.

When the remainder of the funds for the new Imaging Department have been obtained through grants and community donations, mammography and tuberculosis screenings along with pelvic, breast, thyroid, abdominal and echocardiograms exams will be offered full-time. The target opening date for the Imaging Department is spring 2008. In honor of the Foundation’s gift, KHEIR has re-named its clinic to be the KHEIR – S. Mark Taper Foundation Community Clinic.   

“We’re very pleased to support the endeavors of KHEIR as it builds capacity and increases the community’s access to quality healthcare. This will help close the ongoing health disparity gap in Los Angeles,” says Raymond Reisler, executive director of the S. Mark Taper Foundation.

The S. Mark Taper Foundation, founded in 1989, is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of people’s lives by supporting nonprofit organizations and their work in our communities. KHEIR is proud to partner with the Foundation to ensure that underserved Korean and Latino women will have access to life-saving breast cancer screenings.

Ray Reisler, CEO of the S. Mark Taper Foundation, speaks in support of the KHEIR Center.

The KHEIR – S. Mark Taper Foundation Community Clinic offers primary and preventive care for all age groups. To make an appointment, please call (213) 637-1070, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.