CELEBRATING UCHEALTH EMPLOYEES 

Health Care Week is an opportunity for us to celebrate and recognize our incredible UCHealth staff. Stop by Longs Peak Hospital Foundation’s table during Grill Day at Broomfield Hospital and Longs Peak Hospital for your chance to win. 

Winning numbers will be announced by Friday, May 15

Thank you for joining us in celebrating our fellow health care workers! If you have a winning number, please contact Haley Katz at haley.katz@uchealth.org. Winners must claim their prize by Friday, May 22 or a new number will be announced.

  EMPLOYEE GIVEAWAY INCLUDES:

• Gray Tote
• Cooling Towel
• Fan
• Power Bank
• Sunshade
• Water Bottle
• Blinky Wand

LONGS PEAK HOSPITAL FOUNDATION SUPPORTS EMPLOYEES YEAR-ROUND

At UCHealth, caring goes beyond patient care—it’s part of who we are. Thanks to the generosity of UCHealth employees, lives are changed every day. Together, we support patients in need, create opportunities for healing and lift each other up in times of hardship. During Health Care Week, we’re celebrating you—our incredible employees—by sharing a few of the ways your generosity makes a difference in our region:

• Hardship Relief Program provides essential support to colleagues facing unexpected emergencies.
• Greatest Needs Funds empower patient care enhancements, community health programs, and funds research and innovation.

Want to learn more or start giving?

When you give through payroll deduction, your gift—big or small—joins others to create lasting impact. Plus, UCHealth always matches 50% of every $1 you give to UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital Foundation, extending the reach of your generosity.

2026 Charitable Tax Law Changes

Beginning January 1, 2026, several changes to the federal tax code will take effect under recently passed legislation. These changes may influence how donors plan and time their charitable giving. While Longs Peak Hospital Foundation cannot offer tax or legal advice, we want to ensure you have the information you need to have informed conversations with your advisors.

Below is a high-level overview of key changes, along with considerations you may wish to discuss with your tax or financial professional.

Key Changes for 2026

1. Universal Charitable Deduction for Standard Filers

For the first time in many years, donors who take the standard deduction may claim a limited charitable deduction:

• Up to $1,000 for single filers
• Up to $2,000 for joint filers

(Some gifts, such as those to donor-advised funds or private non-operating foundations, are not eligible.)

Who may be affected: Households that take the standard deduction.

2. New 0.5% Deduction “Floor” for Itemizers

Beginning in 2026, itemizers will no longer be able to deduct the first 0.5% of their AGI in charitable contributions.

For example, a donor with $500,000 AGI will not be able to deduct the first $2,500 of charitable contributions.

Who may be affected: Primarily high-income households, small-business owners, or those who regularly itemize.

3. Permanently Extended Charitable Provisions

Two previously temporary charitable incentives are now permanent:

• Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs)
  • Donors aged 70½ or older can continue making gifts directly from an IRA to a qualified nonprofit.

These gifts can:

• Count toward required minimum distributions
• Reduce taxable income
• Provide an option to fund a one-time split-interest gift (up to $54,000)

Higher Estate & Gift Tax Exemptions Beginning in 2026:

• $15 million exemption for individuals
• $30 million exemption for married couples

Many donors will continue choosing legacy gifts because they align with personal values, not just tax incentives.

Cap on Itemized Deduction Value

Regardless of a donor’s tax bracket, itemized deductions will be limited to 35 cents per dollar. This may influence timing and strategy for households that typically make larger charitable gifts.

What These Changes Could Mean for You

If You Take the Standard Deduction

Beginning in 2026, you may be eligible for a universal charitable deduction even if you do not itemize your taxes. This could make your giving more tax-advantaged than before.

Here are a few things to consider:

• You may decide to time some gifts in 2026 to take advantage of the new deduction.
• If you are age 65 or older, the expanded senior deduction taking effect in 2025 may increase your overall charitable capacity.
• Even smaller or recurring gifts may now provide a modest tax benefit, depending on your personal tax situation.

 If You Are an Itemizer or a High-Income Household

For donors who itemize deductions, or whose income places them in higher tax brackets, two major changes may affect how you plan your giving:

• You may choose to “bunch” or consolidate several years of gifts into one year, potentially using a donor-advised fund, to maximize deductibility.
• It may be advantageous to accelerate some giving into 2025 before the new deduction floor and cap take effect.
• Giving appreciated non-cash assets such as stock, real estate, or business interests may continue to offer significant tax advantages.
• If you have an existing multi-year pledge, you may wish to complete payments earlier to benefit from current rules.

Your tax advisor can help you determine which of these strategies may apply to your situation.

If You Are Age 70½ or Older

Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from IRAs continue to be one of the most tax-efficient ways to give. A QCD may:

• Reduce your taxable income
• Satisfy the required minimum distributions
• Be used (up to $54,000 in a one-time option) to establish certain types of charitable gift annuities

This provision may be especially beneficial if you prefer to give directly from retirement assets.

 If You Are Thinking About Your Legacy

Beginning in 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption will rise to:

• $15 million for individuals
• $30 million for married couples

While this may affect how families plan gifts to heirs, many donors continue to include charitable bequests because legacy planning reflects personal values, not just tax policy.

If you’re revisiting your estate plans, this may be a good moment to explore how charitable giving fits into your long-term goals.

No Matter How You Give

These tax law changes may influence the timing or structure of charitable gifts, but generosity remains deeply personal. Most donors continue giving because they believe in the impact their philanthropy makes, and that doesn’t change.

As you think about your plans for 2025 and 2026, your tax and financial advisors are the best resources to help you understand how the new rules apply to your individual situation. We encourage you to consult with your:

• Tax professional
• Financial planner
• Estate planning attorney

They can help you determine the most beneficial timing and approach for your charitable giving.

We’re Here if You’d Like to Talk

If you’d like to explore how your giving can support world-class care for our community, we would be grateful to connect.

CELEBRATING UCHEALTH EMPLOYEES 

Health Care Week is an opportunity for us to celebrate and recognize our incredible UCHealth staff. Stop by the Longs Peak Hospital Foundation’s table during the times below for complimentary ice cream and to enter to win our exclusive giveaway. You must be a UCHealth employee to win! 

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF THE WINNERS!

EMPLOYEE GIVEAWAY INCLUDES:

• Igloo Backpack Cooler
• Auto Sunshade
• Outdoor Picnic Blanket
• Stadium Bag
• Stainless Steel Water Bottle

Thank you for joining us in celebrating our fellow health care workers! If you have a the winning number, please contact Haley Katz at haley.katz@uchealth.org. Winners must claim their prize by Friday, May 23 or a new number will be announced.

LONGS PEAK HOSPITAL FOUNDATION SUPPORTS EMPLOYEES YEAR-ROUND

At UCHealth, caring goes beyond patient care—it’s part of who we are. Thanks to the generosity of UCHealth employees, lives are changed every day. Together, we support patients in need, create opportunities for healing and lift each other up in times of hardship. During Health Care Week, we’re celebrating you—our incredible employees—by sharing a few of the ways your generosity makes a difference in our region:

Hardship Relief Program provides essential support to colleagues facing unexpected emergencies.

Greatest Need Fund empowers patient care enhancements, community health programs, and funds research and innovation.

Want to learn more or start giving?

When you give through payroll deduction, your gift—big or small—joins others to create lasting impact. Plus, UCHealth always matches 50% of every $1 you give to UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital Foundation, extending the reach of your generosity.

Golf for a Heart-Healthy Community

PRESENTED BY BOULDER VALLEY ANESTHESIOLOGY

Thank you for joining us at our Topgolf Tournament on Sunday, September 22, 2024. The event raised over $30,000 to place AEDs in our community and expand critically important resuscitation training, moving Longmont closer to becoming a HEARTSafe-designated community.  We are grateful for your support of this critical endeavor and being part of making Longmont a beacon of heart health.

2024 Event Sponsors

 Presenting Sponsor

Beverage Sponsor

Bay Sponsors

Kay Marsh & Lisa Michalski

“Jonathan’s extensive development experience will be invaluable as we strive to support the critical work of our hospitals and clinics,” said Ryan Rohman, president of Longs Peak and Broomfield Hospital. “The board and I are looking forward to working closely with Jonathan. We know that he will empower the foundation to reach new heights of fundraising success.”

Clifton holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University. He assumed his director position with UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital Foundation on Aug. 12, 2024.

UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital Foundation is pleased to match our donors’ passion for educational excellence with our employees’ professional and personal goals. Thanks to the generosity of employee, corporate and community donations, $23,500 has been awarded to 17 employees for the 2024-2025 school year.

Congratulations to our 2024 Scholarship Awardees:

Brittany McCarty
Analise Moreno
Kristin Newell
Rya Pagliughi
Brigid Reilly
Hannah Noel True
Marielle Janinne Zagala
Anonymous (1)

UCHealth employees who serve at the following locations may be eligible for a Longs Peak Hospital Foundation scholarship: UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital, UCHealth Broomfield Hospital, or a UCHealth clinic directly affiliated with these hospitals. For more information on the program, visit the link below.

Golf for a Heart-Healthy Community | Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024

PRESENTED BY BOULDER VALLEY ANESTHESIOLOGY

We are on a mission to ensure that every heart in our community beats strong. To achieve our goal of earning the HEARTSafe Community designation, we’re raising funds to cover the costs of additional AEDs to increase the availability throughout the community, required training for use of AEDs and hands-only CPR, planning and preparation.

Thank you for supporting this critical endeavor and being part of making Longmont a beacon of heart health.

She spent five days in the intensive care unit and another two weeks in the hospital. Plasma exchange therapy, intravenous antivirals, and other meds pulled her back from the brink and restored feeling and afforded some movement to her legs. But upon discharge, she rolled out of the hospital in a wheelchair, unable to walk and her prognosis murky. Many with transverse myelitis recover fully, thought that can take months. Others have permanent disability.

Acute Transverse Myelitis forced her to relearn how to walk, one step at a time

Her next stop was UCHealth Broomfield Hospital a few miles down U.S. 36. That’s where Boulder Community Health and UCHealth are partners in an 18-bed rehabilitation unit for patients recovering from such conditions as stroke, neurological disorders, and brain and spinal cord injuries.

There Briar would focus on learning to walk again. Marisa Leykam, the UCHealth Broomfield Hospital senior physical therapist who would work with Briar most closely, had seen transverse myelitis cases before, but none so young.

During 90-minute sessions five days a week, Leykam and physical-therapist colleagues focused on building Briar’s strength and improving her balance. This was a continual process of evaluating Briar’s movements, focusing on exercises to challenge deficiencies, and repeating as she gained strength and function.

The work included mat work; walking with the walker and, later, trekking poles; stair climbing; balance training on different surfaces and dynamic balance training involving throwing and kicking a ball; and much more. A planned summer trip to England and Ireland – one that would involve a lot of time on her feet – served as additional motivation. By the end of her first week, Briar managed to walk the 0.3 miles uphill to the nearest Starbucks with help from a walker. Leykam paced her from behind while pushing a wheelchair that stayed empty. The Starbucks was closer than the Delta Gamma house is to the Norlin Library on the CU Campus, but it felt like a whole lot farther. Starbucks then served as a venue for some impromptu occupational therapy, Leykam says.

More work to do

Meanwhile, UCHealth occupational therapist Sarah Bury and colleagues worked with Briar on practicing life skills from dressing, eating, bathing, and, in Briar’s case, baking brownies and cooking up quesadillas.

From left, UCHealth physical therapists Missy Darnell and Marisa Leykam with Briar during her a visit to UCHealth Broomfield Hospital in early April. Photo by Kelly Tracer, UCHealth.

Two weeks after she rolled into UCHealth Broomfield Hospital, she walked out with aid from a walker. She had, in therapy, graduated to trekking poles, and was able to walk unaided with Leykam spotting her. She flew home to parents Beverly and Keith’s home in Alamo, California, where she did another month of twice-a-week outpatient rehabilitation. She continued to improve and did make it to England and Ireland. A three-mile walk along Ireland’s Moher Cliffs was a turning point.

“I didn’t know how long it was when we started it. But at the end of it, I checked my Apple Watch,” Briar said. “After that, I was like, ‘OK, I think I’m strong enough to do almost anything now.’”

But a full recovery would indeed take months. The last holdout was her bladder. It wouldn’t completely cooperate until she was back at CU Boulder the following fall semester, at which point she could ditch the catheter. She took two of the final exams she missed that fall, too. (She had been doing well enough in her other three classes that her professors excused her from the tests.)

Two years hence, Briar was preparing for her last round of finals before graduating. The psychology major with minors in business and sociology will walk across the stage at the CU Events Center during the Psychology & Neuroscience ceremony on May 10. She’ll soon leave Boulder behind as she seeks a job in medical or pharmaceutical sales in California’s Bay Area. She hasn’t forgotten the health care providers who helped her get back on her feet.

“At Boulder Community Hospital, they were awesome,” she said. “At UCHealth, they were amazing. I mean, I felt like I was friends with everyone, which was super fun.”

Original story posted on UCHealth Today by Todd Neff.