Giving Stories

Dottie Huck: A Woman Inspired

Dorothy ("Dottie" to everyone) Huck is a dynamo. When she is inspired, she works tirelessly, committing her mind, body and soul to an organization or cause. This is a story about commitment and transformation, and Dottie's expertise at both.

Since joining the State College community officially as residents in 2003 (Dottie and her husband, Lloyd, are Penn Staters, graduating in 1943, and have given countless hours of volunteer service to the University since they graduated), Dottie and Lloyd have become intimately involved in the community. She is a regular volunteer with Mount Nittany Medical Center on the Fourth Floor (where the birthing suites are located, which Dottie calls, "the best place to work in the hospital"), where she assists the clinical staff with delivery of lab tests/results and also assists visitors, checks on patients and distributes flowers and mail. She acts in an advisory capacity as a board member with The Second Mile, Centre County PAWS and The Foundation for Mount Nittany Medical Center. That's Dottie's commitment side.

Dottie's inspiration for serving on Mount Nittany Medical Center's Foundation Board turned more personal over the past year. While she has always valued quality healthcare (what mother and wife doesn't?), a long-time cardiac issue that became more serious recently demonstrated for her the critical significance of having an outstanding Medical Center and superb physicians very close by.

That significance occurred to Dottie even before her recent cardiac scare (a pacemaker installed at Mount Nittany has given Dottie and Lloyd a large measure of comfort and reduced the stress on Dottie's heart). She and Lloyd decided, as part of their larger gift to The Foundation for Mount Nittany Medical Center, to inspire Mount Nittany's Rural Cancer Outreach program by creating a position for an oncology nurse to travel to rural communities in central Pennsylvania as a cancer educator and screener. That kind of foresight and opportunity characterizes Dottie's transformational side. She and her husband felt strongly that people in rural areas—especially people with cancer risk or early stage cancer—should have similar access to medical facilities and specialists as people living in more urban settings. Transformational, indeed.

Dottie knows the value of philanthropy: to sustain important programs and services; or, to encourage programmatic or technological advances; or, to construct or equip facilities to be more client-focused, more family-friendly; and to aid in the recruitment of top-notch professionals. That's why Dottie Huck, along with Lloyd, has made a significant contribution to The Foundation for Mount Nittany Medical Center. Dottie knows that she can play a role in helping to advance healthcare for the people of our region. After all, exceptional healthcare might again help Dottie or someone she cares about. And that inspires Dottie.