A personal connection

Philanthropy is deeply personal for Kylene and Brad Beers. Their connection to St. Luke’s and The Woodlands Hospital is rooted in their love for their community and Kylene’s own experiences as a cancer patient.

Brad, an attorney, had recently joined the Woodlands Hospital board when Kylene noticed a pain in her breast. Like many women, she ignored the signal her body was sending, thinking perhaps it was too much caffeine in her diet or a pulled muscle. But when nothing helped alleviate the discomfort, she made a last-minute appointment at the hospital’s imaging center.

“It was Friday at the beginning of spring break,” Kylene says. “So no one was going in for a mammogram. Everyone was getting their kids and heading out of town.”

She was shocked to learn she had two different cancers – one in each breast. That was more than 10 years ago, and she still wonders if a higher power wasn’t at work when it comes to her diagnosis.

“I always thought that there was an angel on my shoulder because I was the world’s worst procrastinator,” she says.

Her experience as a St. Luke’s patient would change her. She and Brad both recall the compassionate and personalized care she received each time she walked through the doors of the hospital.

“There was this tremendous sharing of both fear and care and it was also so incredibly empowering to be surrounded by these nurses and a female radiologist who understood,” she says. “And I’ve always held on to that moment. Because in that worst moment there were people around me that I didn’t know at all, and yet we were this incredible community. And I think it is that community spirit that I felt at my most vulnerable time that has pulled me back to St. Luke’s time and time again.”
 
That experience has translated to a long, philanthropic relationship with the hospital. In addition to supporting the imaging center, the Beers, who have been married 40 plus years, have a strong commitment to addressing the disparities they see in health care – a focus St. Luke’s shares as part of its mission. As a board member Brad was dismayed to learn just how many people in his own community live in poverty.

“It’s important to make a difference when you can,” he says. “And one of the reasons we’re so interested in supporting health care is because despite the United States, despite Texas, despite Houston having some of the best health care in the world, there are still tremendous gaps in what’s available to everyone.”

Kylene shares her own evolution on the importance of philanthropic support for a health system. “I didn’t understand that someone needed to give to a hospital,” she says. “I needed a learning ramp, an on-ramp to understanding that nonprofits require people to say ‘How can I help here?’ Health care is directly affected by the quality of the knowledge of those doctors and nurses who are in the hospitals that serve our most vulnerable populations.”