Department of Communication & Public Affairs

NEWS RELEASE

Date: June 2, 2008
Contact: Jennifer Forbes
Phone: 732-235-6356
Email: jenn.forbes@umdnj.edu

Community Leaders to be Honored at 

Eric B. Chandler Health Center Gala Event

New Brunswick, NJ – Three exemplary individuals will be honored at the Eric B. Chandler Health Center Gala, for their leadership and contributions to providing quality healthcare to the New Brunswick community. The honorees are:

• Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, president and CEO, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
• C. Roy Epps, president and CEO, the Civic League of Greater New Brunswick and
• Mariela Herrera-Cifelli, BSW, CSW, social worker at the Chandler Health Center.  

The gala will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Chandler Health Center, a federally qualified community health center, that offers medical services to all who are in need, regardless of a person’s or family’s ability to pay.  The gala will be held on Saturday, September 20, 2008 at The Heldrich hotel in New Brunswick; New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill will serve as honorary chair.

Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey will be presented with the Eric B. Chandler Achievement Award in recognition as a national leader in transforming America’s health systems so people live healthier lives and receive the health care they need. She is a practicing physician with business credentials and hands-on experience developing national health policy. Under Lavizzo-Mourey’s leadership, the Foundation has restructured its strategic investments to target a set of high-impact priorities, including improving the quality and safety of patient care; halting the rise in childhood obesity by 2015; easing the crisis in the nursing profession and covering the uninsured.

Mr. Epps will be honored with an award in his name: the C. Roy Epps Community Leadership Award. The award is in recognition of his long-standing leadership and activism in social planning for the New Brunswick community. Mr. Epps has served as an executive in the Civic League of New Brunswick since 1967, then known as the Urban League of Greater New Brunswick. Under his leadership, it became an independent organization in 1983, from which time he has served as its president.  The Civic League provides many services to the disadvantaged in the community, with a focus on the needs of black youth and directing much of its effort into the promotion of low-income housing. Mr. Epps was instrumental in the legal proceedings that led to the famous Mount Laurel decision requiring municipalities to provide their fair shares of low and moderate income housing, which remains the cornerstone of land use law in the state and has been modeled in other parts of the country.  He is founding chair and a former board member of the Eric B. Chandler Health Center.

Ms. Mariela Herrera-Cifelli, BSW, CSW, will be recognized with the Excellence in Service Award for her leadership and dedication to the patients at the Chandler Health Center.  A licensed social worker, Ms. Herrera-Cifelli was raised in Guatemala where she began volunteering at the age of 16 by teaching adults to read and write. Although trained as an elementary school teacher, she pursued a career in social work after assisting children and their families with hygiene and nutrition concerns following an earthquake in 1976. Since then, she has provided assistance as both a professional and a volunteer to children and families in Central America and in the New Brunswick community through several organizations, including Women in Community Service, Edison, NJ, the Red Cross, Latinos Alcoholic Anonymous, Carlito’s Wish Foundation, Food World Program, Catholic Charities and the Domestic Violence Coalition of New Brunswick. She joined the Chandler Health Center in 1998 and has developed its adolescent program and the domestic violence awareness program.

The Eric B. Chandler Health Center’s goal is to eliminate barriers to quality and family-oriented health care for its diverse, multicultural population by providing comprehensive acute and chronic care to patients of all ages. Chandler is operated jointly by UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the Eric B. Chandler Community Advisory Board, Inc.

For information about the Gala, please call 732-235-5810.

About Robert Wood Johnson Medical School:

As one of the nation’s leading comprehensive medical schools, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school’s principal affiliate, they comprise New Jersey’s premier academic medical center. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region.

As one of the eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with 2,500 full-time and volunteer faculty, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School encompasses 22 basic science and clinical departments, hosts centers and institutes including The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey. The medical school maintains educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels for more than 1,500 students on its campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, and Camden, and provides continuing education courses for health care professionals and community education programs. 

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