We should really start this column with a thank you to the Honorable Ed Rendell, because when he served as Mayor of Philadelphia, he had a vision for turning Broad Street into the Avenue of the Arts.<\/p>\n
Only the legislature did not release the funds required.<\/p>\n
So Rendell called up his old friend Sidney Kimmel and asked him to write a check.\u00a0 Which Kimmel, a known philanthropist, willingly did.<\/p>\n
And that is how the Kimmel Center became the lead building on The Avenue of the Arts.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Kimmel married Caroline who was very happy to join her husband with his donations, especially to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.<\/p>\n
Kimmel was a fashionista for decades with his Jones New York clothing.<\/p>\n
My best friend Debby Wolff and i both used to buy and wear Jones New York outfits regularly.<\/p>\n
But I think Kimmel developed a serious health problem.\u00a0 Then Jefferson Hospital cured him.<\/p>\n
The result was Kimmel\u2019s donation which resulted in the medical school\u2019s being named for him.<\/p>\n
Actually, there has been a series of major donations to Jefferson University Hospital.\u00a0 And more is on the way.<\/p>\n
According to Jefferson Hospital, Kimmel has donated $200 million already to Jefferson.<\/p>\n
And Caroline will be honored with the next major donation.\u00a0 The emergency department and research labs will be named in her honor.<\/p>\n
We need more special citizens like Caroline and Sidney Kimmel!<\/p>\n
Bonnie Squires is a freelance journalist.\u00a0 She can be reached at bonnie.squires@verizon.net<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 11, 2025 at 8:17 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We should really start this column with a thank you to the Honorable Ed Rendell, because when he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":138534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,728,82983,9631,50,1269,1448,2830,1311,33431,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-138533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-lower-merion-township","11":"tag-montgomery-county","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-opinion","14":"tag-pa","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-philadelphia","17":"tag-top-stories-mlt","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115013470345470505","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}