When Melissa F. Neumann, MD, and her husband, James Crichton, made a $150,000 pledge earlier this year to the Laszlo Ormandy Professorship Fund in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine, they did not know how fast their gift would change its purpose.

When artist Judith Snyderman, RN’64, Honorary Alumna’19, was in high school in Brooklyn, New York, her grandmother had a major stroke. One side of her body was disabled, and she was moved to a nursing home. Snyderman recalls vividly how caregivers transferred her grandmother from the bed to a wheelchair. “I remember her helplessness, and I wished I could help her,” she says.

Duke connections remain strong and community spirit shines through from the other side of the world. Donations of cash and surgical masks to Duke Health arrive quickly thanks to active network.

As teams throughout Duke’s hospitals, clinics, and research labs actively monitor and respond to the developing COVID-19 pandemic, Duke Health’s COVID-19 Response Fund to support the area of greatest need has received a generous gift from the Biogen Foundation.