News

Contact: Sarah Bello

$250,000 to go toward the BuildCMH Expansion Project

Local couple Jody Stahancyk and John Crawford have announced a $250,000 gift toward the BuildCMH Expansion Project. The gift will name the surgical waiting area for patient family members and provide a nook for coffee, tea and water.

The couple emphasizes that the naming and the amount aren’t important — but they hope by showing their support for the expansion project’s capital campaign, others in the community will also see how they can give.

“We are so grateful for this lead gift to the BuildCMH Expansion Project capital campaign,” says Mark Kujala, CMH Foundation director. “Jody and John are patients of CMH. We are glad the care they’ve received here has made such an impact on them, and we know their gift will make an impact on generations to come when the expanded hospital opens.”

Stahancyk and Crawford are attorneys, and she has had an office for her practice, Stahancyk, Kent & Hook, in Astoria since the early 2000s. As mainly Portland residents with a longtime family home on the coast, they moved to Clatsop County permanently in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The next year, Crawford was diagnosed with cancer and began treatment in Portland. But he quickly transferred his care to the CMH-OHSU Knight Cancer Collaborative in Astoria.

“I just received outstanding care there. I can’t say enough about it,” Crawford says. “The staff, the doctors, the nurses at the facility were outstanding, caring and very professional.”

As newer residents on the coast, the couple agrees that when someone becomes a part of a community, they need to give back. Crawford serves as president of the Palisades Homeowners Association, and Stahancyk is on the Clatsop Community College board.

Both feel strongly about giving to the expansion project for three reasons: their thankfulness for Crawford’s cancer treatment, their intention to be a part of the community and the opportunities the expansion will offer for North Coast residents in terms of offering better health care and a safe refuge from a natural disaster.

“The other reason is that we want to be able to show our children and grandchildren that a part of being blessed is that you give back,” Stahancyk says. “It needn’t be a huge amount, but it must be something that as a group you consider to be important. When John and I shared with our children that we were going to make this gift, each of them said ‘We’re so proud.’”

The couple has encouraged their family to give back to their own communities in whatever way they are able and would like to see others on the coast join them in giving to the hospital expansion project.

To learn more about the expansion, visit columbiamemorial.org/buildcmh.

To give toward the capital campaign, visit columbiamemorial.org/buildcmh-campaign.