Community Care Cruiser Press Conference
August 1, 2007

Bobcats And Presbyterian Hospital Partner in Community Care Cruiser

The Charlotte Bobcats and Presbyterian Hospital announced their joint commitment to the newly established Presbyterian Hospital Community Care Cruiser on Wednesday. The following is the transcript from the press conference held at Nations Ford Community Church:

Bobcats President and Chief Operating Officer Fred Whitfield

This is an extremely exciting day for us in the Bobcats organization. As we look around the community and look for great things to do, it is really exciting when we can reach out and find not just a corporate sponsor to do something with, but somebody that is a lot more than a corporate sponsor, which is Presbyterian Hospital. As we look to do some of our initiatives and we think about the things that are important to us as we build our Bobcats brand, we think about the youth, health care and fitness. But to see these smiles on the young people’s faces, there will be times that things aren’t always bright and sunny for them. I have to give a lot of credit to Kim Henderson for working with LaRita Barber, who is our Senior Vice President of Community Relations and heads our Bobcats Charitable Foundation, for the very creative idea that we felt fit dead on with what we were trying to accomplish in giving back to the community and doing very positive things.

The Community Cruiser concept came up in conversation, and we discussed how we could make it a reality. We wanted to make sure that we did something that could get into the disadvantaged neighborhoods and provide health care for those that aren’t able to get over to their beautiful facility at Presbyterian, take quality health care into the community, and really test the lives of some of these young people that may not be smiling some day and may need health care. It is something that we believe very heavily in. It hits right in the middle of the core values that we are building our organization around as we try to earn the right to be a part of Charlotte, North Carolina, and do good things not only on the basketball floor, but also in the community.

We are extremely excited about the project. It is something that we are making a huge commitment to, and we feel great about it. It is something that (Bobcats Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer) Greg Economou and (Bobcats Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel) Jared Bartie and other senior leaders sat down and talked about with LaRita (Barber). It is something that made so much sense that it became a no-brainer. As we try to do things in the community, we can’t do everything. Obviously, everybody has a great cause, but Presbyterian and the Bobcats share one thing in common, and that is a great partnership. But we are also trying to do some very positive things in the health care area and this is something that I think is going to be a huge hit around Charlotte, and we are happy to do it. So without further adieu, I’d like to bring up Lynn Boggs from Presbyterian to say a few words and again. Thanks so much everybody for coming out today.

Presbyterian Health Care Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Lynn Boggs
Good afternoon everybody. As the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Presbyterian Health Care, I am truly delighted to talk about this new project today in bringing a new dimension of healthcare to the communities we serve. I’m also delighted that the Charlotte Bobcats have joined us and partnered with us to provide the Community Care Cruiser to our communities that we serve and to make it as impactful as possible. I’d be remissive if I didn’t mention our other partners. We have lots and lots of individual donors that are supporting this project as well as the Foundation of the Carolinas and the Duke Endowment has been very generous with us.

I don’t know if you know this, but at a time when one in nine children are uninsured in the country, we are certainly in those statistics as well. And our cruiser will provide support to the pediatric population of Mecklenburg County that is underserved. We are going to be providing developmental screening, primary care services, immunizations, prenatal care, preventative education, asthma prevention and treatment, and community resource referrals from our cruiser. We’ve used very intense demographic research as well as feedback from our parish-nursing program that has been in play for many, many years in our community churches particularly, and we have identified those zip codes in Mecklenburg County where we have the most immediate need for mobile health care services for our kids.

So today, it is all about kids and we are just delighted that we are working with the Bobcats to bring this very needed service to Mecklenburg County. So thank you again Fred, and thanks to all of you for being here.

Bobcats Television Play-By-Play Announcer Steve Martin
Don’t go too far; we don’t want you to go out of here empty handed. As a matter of face, we have a little gift to get you started. Here we go – I see a five and I see five zeroes.

Bobcats President and Chief Operating Officer Fred Whitfield
On behalf of (Bobcats Majority Owner) Bob Johnson, our other owners and our entire organization, those of us that work hard everyday at the Bobcats Organization, we are proud and thrilled to present the check of $500,000 to the Community Cruiser effort at Presbyterian Hospital.

Nations Ford Community Church Bishop Philip Davis
Thank you to Presbyterian Hospital and to the Charlotte Bobcats. On behalf of the members and the partners of Nations Ford Community Church, we are honored to have been asked to join with these two great organizations in this effort to provide quality health care to youth and children in this community.

Imagine for a moment if you will a first grader who is anxious about going on a first field trip and is rejected and can’t go, simply because his or her family cannot afford a school physical. Or a teen mother who is in her second or third trimester but yet she’s never seen a doctor, simply because she can’t afford it or her family has no insurance. These are situations that are not hypothetical but real life events in the lives of people in this community. Through the use of the mobile unit, children and youth and underserved communities around this area will have the opportunity to get the quality healthcare that they deserve. And Nations Ford Community Church is proud and happy to join with the Charlotte Bobcats and Presbyterian Hospital to serve as one of the host sites of the Community Care Cruiser.

It’s fun, it’s great, but most of all it will be a place where young people can come and simulated in a doctor’s office environment find themselves being able to get immunized and be treated to quality healthcare. The vision of Nation’s Ford Community Church is to reach out into the community and to enhance the quality of life of everyone we touch, serving as a host site for the community healthcare cruiser will allow us to move ever closer to that vision that we hold so dear.

So again, I want to thank the representatives of Presbyterian Hospital and the representatives of the Charlotte Bobcats organization. And I believe together we will make a difference in this community and make a difference in lives of young children. Speaking of children, I have some folks who want to say thank you also. They are sitting here on the front row and some of them are standing back here. So I’m going to ask those children to come up. Give them a hand – these are my friends.

Bobcats Television Play-By-Play Announcer Steve Martin
Please keep in mind that the My Hero Gala is coming up on October 27. There will be more information on that to come in further releases that we will have for you. Keep that in mind as you are planning your schedules and maybe set aside October 27; it will be a very special day as raising funds and getting this program running.

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The following is the transcript from some one-on-one interviews with bobcatsbasketball.com following the press conference:

Nations Ford Community Church Bishop Philip Davis
(On how much Nations Ford Community Church will be involved in the Community Care Cruiser effort)
Well, we are the first host site that they will have, and our involvement is pretty extensive from our perspective because we see it as an opportunity to minister to the community. We have as a part of our church a healthcare ministry and a fitness ministry – this will be an extension of that and allow us to go ahead and reach even further into the community. We are excited about it. We are anticipating whatever the schedule might be so that we can accommodate the Cruiser on a regular ongoing basis, so we are looking forward to it.

(On how good it is to see the Bobcats reaching out to the community to play a major role in this effort)
Well, it’s funny you ask. I had a representative of the Bobcats call me one day wanting to know if I was going to renew my season tickets. And I was frank, I let them know that when I saw an even larger effort to reach into the community and make not only the organization but the players known in the community that they would have my full support. This is a tremendous effort towards that whole goal of reaching into the community. There is a sense of good will that you’ve got to reach into the lives of the children and really raise up the fan base and grow the fan base from the ground up. So I am excited that they are doing this.

Presbyterian Health Care Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Lynn Boggs
(On the Bobcats and Presbyterian’s partnership in this effort)
I think it is a great partnership and kind of a combination or hybrid of their goals and our goals, which is really to focus on the youth and focus on the health of the youth to get them interested in being fit individuals. And so this helps us on the healthcare side to provide services that are needed to be healthy. One out of nine kids in our community don’t have any health insurance at all; for us to be able to take our mission, which is to bring healthcare to the communities that we serve, and take it to the communities that are underserved to help kids to be healthy – that is a wonderful thing.

(On how much this strengthens the Bobcats and Presbyterian’s partnership)
The partnership between Presbyterian and the Bobcats has been a very positive partnership from day one. And we have just continued to build on that partnership through various projects. This is another example of what we can do together when we look at the mission of the Bobcats and the mission of Presbyterian. So we are really excited to be able to do this together.

Bobcats Senior Vice President of Community Relations Larita Barber
(On the importance of the Bobcats reaching out to the youth of Charlotte)
The Community Care Cruiser is exceptionally important as it relates to allowing the Bobcats to firmly establish our brand in the Charlotte community. And furthermore, it is a great opportunity for us to align ourselves and extend our relationship with a wonderful community partner, Presbyterian Hospital. We know that healthcare and access to healthcare is a tremendous issue in this community, and for us to be aligned with something that is relevant to the Charlotte community and to be able to serve the needs of kids is really a slam-dunk. We are delighted to be able to be introducing this to the community.

(On how much this strengthens the relationship between Presbyterian and the Bobcats)
It is one of those opportunities that I don’t think we will even be able to know the impact for some years to come. We know that there are a lot of kids going out there without healthcare, so to be able to naturally and organically align with a partner who provides wonderful quality service to children and then they offer us the opportunity to partner with them – the impact is going to be tremendous.