04/26/06 FREE CLINIC GETS MAJOR GIFT FROM CARL SILVER - The new Moss Free Clinic gets a boost it needed

By JIM HALL/ The Free Lance-Star

The campaign to build a new Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic got a boost yesterday with a $2 million donation from developer Carl D. Silver.

The gift is the largest cash pledge by an individual for the new clinic and pushes its fundraising campaign to more than 90 percent of its goal.

Silver, 80, is a resident of Fredericksburg and the founder of the Silver Cos., one of the largest real estate development companies in the region.

"When you give, you also receive," Silver said at a press conference yesterday. "The disadvantaged person, when sick, hurts just as much as the advantaged person."

The Moss Free Clinic provides free medical care, dental care and medications for the uninsured poor. Volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists and technicians provide the care.

The clinic opened in 1993 and is now on Hunter Street in Fredericksburg. It is named for Dr. Lloyd F. Moss, a 90-year-old retired physician.

Silver's donation will benefit "the most vulnerable members of our population who do not otherwise have access to health care because they are uninsured," said Xavier Richardson, president of the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation, which is leading the campaign.

The hospital foundation set a goal of $10 million to build, furnish and equip a new building and to create a permanent fund to support the operation.

The facility will be located on a parcel adjacent to one of the outer parking lots at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg. The building is expected to be completed next year. It will have two stories and 16,000 square feet of finished space, making it the largest of Virginia's 47 free clinics.

In recognition of the gift, the building will be named the Carl D. Silver Health Center.

Silver was a longtime member of the hospital foundation board and donated the land on State Route 3 for the Cancer Center of Virginia.

"I do not believe that any contribution that I have given is more worthy than the one to Moss Free Clinic," Silver said.

Silver moved to Fredericksburg from Tappahannock nearly 60 years ago. Since then, his Silver Cos. has developed numerous residential and commercial projects in the region, including Central Park, a shopping center on State Route 3, and Celebrate Virginia, an adjacent commercial area.

Virginia Business magazine ranked Silver 15th in its 2005 list of the wealthiest people in the state. The magazine estimated his net worth at $405 million.

Silver said he has had some health problems in recent years. He had pacemaker put in last year and has diabetes. But he said he feels good and still goes to work each day that he is in town. His son Larry runs the company, he said.

As for retirement, he said it doesn't interest him.

"That might happen one day, but right now I don't think I'd like that," he said.

Work, he said, keeps the mind sharp.

"If your head is working, you feel better," he said.

Silver's gift ranks with the area's largest charitable donations. Earlier this month, Arabelle Laws Arrington of Warrenton donated $5 million to her alma mater, the University of Mary Washington. It was the largest gift in the school's history.

Local philanthropist Doris Buffett, through her Sunshine Lady Foundation, has made several donations of more than $1 million to local nonprofit groups, including the Fredericksburg Boys & Girls Club and the Bragg Hill Family Life Center.

Date published: 4/26/2006

Back to News Listing