PRESS RELEASE
Local Doctor Wins $5,000 Award for Charity of Her Choice from Ivory’s Gift of a Gentle Touch Competition

August 24, 2006 (Emmitsburg, MD) – Emmitsburg Osteopathic Primary Carae Center got great news this week.

It’s Executive Director, Dr. Bonita Portier, was selected as one of the Grand Prize Winners of Ivory’s nationals “Gift of a Gentle Touch” competition. The competition honors women 55 or older who give the “Gift of a Gentle Touch” through their volunteer efforts and give back to their communities. Five women from throughout the country have been selected for this special honor.

Each winner of the competition is asked to designate a charity to receive a $5,000 Grand Prize Award. Dr. Portier has selected Emmitsburg Osteopathic Primary Care Center as the beneficiary of her award. Funds will be used to support the new clinic that the organization opened at 121-123 West Main Street in January 2006.

Dr. Portier was chosen for this based on a 100 word essay written by her daughter, Laura Portier-LaLumiere. The essay described Dr. Portier’s dedication to the working poor of her service to Emmitsburg Osteopathic Primary Care Center. As the founding Executive Director of this organization, which was launched in 1999, Dr. Portier has tirelessly given her time and her heart to the uninsured and underinsured of Frederick County and Adams County, providing them with free or low cost primary care services and medicines. This work is incorporated into her service at her primary care internal medicine practice located in Emmitsburg, Maryland. EOPCC is a medical teaching site with A-rating from Osteopathic Colleges, nurse-practitioner schools, and credited internships through Mount St. Mary’s University.

To learn more about the competition and the other exceptional women who share this honor with Dr. Portier, please visit ivory.com. To join Ivory and it’s parent company Proctor and Gamble in supporting Dr. Portier’s work, you can make a tax-deductivle contribution to Emmitsburg Osteopathic Primary Care Center. Checks can be mailed to EOPCC, PO Box 1219, Emmitsburg, MD 21727.

Emmitsburg Osteopathic Primary Care Center serves approximately 3,000 patients annually, providing primary care services and distributing $100,000 in medicines to those in need throughout each year.

Gentle Touch Essay
By: Laura Portier-LaLumiere
Would you give up a physician’s six figure salary and do your job for free to help the less fortunate? Bonnie Portier did. Five years ago, she left her job at a successful private practice and launched a nonprofit primary care center serving the working poor. Along with primary care services, her soft, gentle, yet strong hands provide osteopathic manipulation therapy to patients, healing through touch. Each year, her gentle hands touch the lives of 3,000 patients and hand out $100,000 in free medicines, giving the gift of health to the uninsured and underinsured. I’m so proud she’s my mom!