News

Contact: Sarah Bello

Pierre Sundborg initially pledged $140,000, now giving $250,000

Pierre and Jean Sundborg of Seattle visited Astoria three times in 2017, thinking to make the city their final home. They spent an entire week studying Columbia Memorial Hospital, and that cemented their decision.

“We became convinced that this is a place where people in their 80s should move to live near an amazingly good medical facility,” Pierre says.

Unfortunately, Jean passed away unexpectedly six months later, so Pierre moved alone in September 2019, soon after having a bladder surgery in Seattle.

The day after arrival, he began bleeding badly, and a neighbor drove him to CMH. He spent a full day under the care of Emergency Department nurse Maritza Casarrubias-Sanchez. A follow-up with Casarrubias-Sanchez the next day cleared up the issue, with Sundborg grateful for the care he received.

With his wife’s passing, Sundborg began considering their wills and the joint bequests they had planned on making. A mentor encouraged him to read the book, “The Psychology of Money.”

“There’s a chapter that says you have a choice — if you have more money than you really need to live safely and comfortably, you should do some good for the world with it,” Sundborg says. “If not, you’ll die and be a miser. I realized I really didn’t need all I had at age 84.”

So, while still very much alive, Sundborg fulfilled most of the bequests in both their wills, since “money is worth more to young people than older people,” he explains. He gave away a third of his net worth, then heard about the BuildCMH Expansion Project. He had already planned to give to the hospital, but he knew that it could also likely use the money now, rather than later.

In 2023, he gave $140,000 to the expansion project to honor the care he received from Casarrubias-Sanchez. The following year, the hospital’s Health Compass publication arrived in the mail, and he read about CMH Foundation board member Linda Moreland’s gift of $250,000.

“I saw her words: ‘You have a choice — if you have appreciated investments, you can either give to the IRS or you can give to charity,’” Sundborg says. “I said, ‘Self, don’t die a miser and leave it to the IRS.’ So, I matched her gift with an additional $110,000, for a total of $250,000.”

Sundborg says he doesn’t need any recognition but will have the great honor of naming the new physicians’ lounge in the expanded hospital for his mother, who taught him to invest at a young age to increase his ability to give now.

“I have two basic thoughts,” Sundborg says. “One: Don’t die rich. Two: If you have more than you need, do good for the world as soon as possible. It is rewarding and not done for any self-glorification. Thus, I humbly suggest we should all ask ourselves: ‘Do I have more than I need? Can I do some good now?’”