Each month, Helping Hands features a mortgage professional or group that has volunteered to lend a hand to others in need

Ivanna C. Sukkar

As published in Scotsman Guide's Commercial Edition, September 2009.

Name Catherine Arnold, vice president and senior wealth adviser, Union Bank

Project Board member for the Lenny Wilkens Foundation

Site Seattle

How This past February, Arnold accepted an appointment to the board of directors for the Lenny Wilkens Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports childhood health care and education in Seattle.

Through her position at Union Bank, Arnold says she gives the foundation's board a "corporate-community voice."

The Union Bank Foundation also donated $15,000 to the charity this past May; it was the bank's first contribution to the charity, Arnold says.

Founded by former NBA player and coach Lenny Wilkens, the charity funds the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, a Seattle Children's Hospital community clinic, Arnold says.

Why Arnold says Lenny Wilkens Foundation Executive Director Brigid Graham asked her to join the board of directors because of her "passion for helping all children" and her role as member of the Seattle Children's Hospital Legacy Advisory Group. Arnold says she found it "easy to say yes."

"It was a way to get involved with a group that's small enough to make an impact," she says. "The fact that so many children don't have health care hurts my heart."

Impact Arnold says the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic treats "the whole person, not just cuts and bruises."

Along with medical care, the clinic also provides mental-health counseling and dental services to children, Arnold says. According to odessabrown.org, the clinic provides these services "regardless of [families'] ability to pay."

The Lenny Wilkens Foundation's annual celebrity weekend, which includes a golf tournament and charity gala, was this past Aug. 14 and 15, Arnold says. She says that despite the difficult economy, the board decided to move forward with the event this year.

"The economy is tough, but kids don't stop needing medical care," she says.

Try it www.lennywilkensfoundation.org

Ivanna C. Sukkar is senior associate editor at Scotsman Guide. Reach her at (800) 297-6061 or ivanna@scotsmanguide.com.

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