As a part of Tulsa's 918 Day, a powerhouse team of women from Ascension St. John partnered with Green Country Habitat for Humanity frame a house for their annual Women Build event.

With every beam lifted and put into place, this group came together with other women-led construction teams at a site near 30th Place North and Lewis to help construct a new and healthier home for another Tulsa family. 

Their teamwork and spirit of our volunteers reflected the heart of Ascension St. John: caring for people within our hospital as well as out in our community.

The St. John Foundation is a proud supporter of Green Country Habitat for Humanity through a grant from our Health Equity Initiative. 

If you would like to volunteer with the St. John Foundation, email us at stjohnfoundation@ascension.org.

Serving our Community through Women Build 2025

On Friday, November 14, 2025, the Ascension St. John Foundation and the Ascension St. John Kidney Transplant Program hosted a heartfelt celebration honoring the extraordinary individuals who have given the gift of life through their living donor program. 

This special event recognized the courage and true generosity of our living kidney donors whose selfless acts have transformed lives of patients and their families.

The celebration featured inspiring stories from transplant recipients, remarks from transplant team physicians and a presentation to the living donors in attendance. 

"Each kidney transplant recipient here this evening carries a story of gratitude that runs deeper than we can ever fully express," said Katie Hallum, event emcee and a transplant recipient herself. "You are proof that compassion and generosity can change lives for recipients, their families and all those around them."

We'd like to recognize the sponsors of the 2025 Ascension St. John Living Donor Celebration. Thank you for your support of this truly vital program:

For more information in giving to the Ascension St. John Kidney Transplant Program or sponsoring the 2026 Living Donor Celebration, please contact us at stjohnfoundation@ascension.org. 

Celebrating the Gift of Life: The St. John Living Kidney Donor Celebration

The Ascension St. John Foundation has helped provide support to our associates in times of hardship through its Associate Hardship Program. Through its generous donors, the foundation has been able to provide more than $70,000 annually in emergency assistance to associates experiencing various types of financial need. 

The fund was established in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to support employees facing unexpected or difficult personal circumstances. It provides timely assistance to individuals who encounter challenges such as natural disasters, housing crises or other unforeseen events that disrupt their lives or financial stability.

Every dollar donated to this fund benefits our local associates. A committee of local leaders at Ascension St. John Medical Center meets monthly to personally review each funding request from associates throughout Tulsa, Bartlesville, Broken Arrow, Sapulpa, Nowata, Owasso, Jenks and all AMG clinic sites.   

Donate to the Associate Hardship Program at Ascension St. John today!

St. John Associate Hardship Program

Sister M. Therese Gottschalk, SSM, 1931-2020

Sister M. Therese Gottschalk, SSM, passed away Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She was 88 years old. “We are beyond grateful for her 38 years of leadership with Ascension St. John in Oklahoma and the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother,” said Joseph R. Impicciche, JD, MHA, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ascension. A remembrance service and Catholic Mass celebrating her life was held in Oshkosh, WI on March 4, 2020. Sister M. Therese Gottschalk was born in 1931 in Bavaria, Germany, the second of 14 children. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother at the age of 21. She moved to Milwaukee in 1953 and earned a pharmacy degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1960. After graduation, she operated the pharmacy for a new 150-bed hospital in Roswell, New Mexico, for eight years. Sr. Therese left this position to obtain a master’s degree in hospital administration from Saint Louis University. Known for both her commitment to the Mission of Catholic healthcare and her business acumen, Sr. Therese became an assistant administrator of St. John’s Hospital in Tulsa (later St. John Medical Center) and its School of Nursing in 1970, serving in this role for two years. As part of her duties, she worked with other assistant administrators to operate the hospital and to design a new hospital tower. Sr. Therese returned to Roswell for two years to serve as hospital administrator, then returned to Tulsa after being named St. John’s Hospital President in 1974. 

Upon her return, the hospital underwent a $40 million construction project to build the North Tower, now called the J.A. Chapman Tower. The 603-bed tower was dedicated Feb. 22, 1976. Sr. Therese became Chief Executive Officer of St. John Health System in 1982 and served through 2010. Sr. Therese was always at the forefront of expanding services to meet the growing needs of the community, especially those living in poverty and most vulnerable. During her career, Sr. Therese supervised the building of the Mary K. Chapman Health Plaza, the Bernsen, Kravis, Holliman and Wheeling buildings, and purchase of the Robert W. Davis Tower in Tulsa. Also during her tenure, St. John Health System expanded to include St. John Sapulpa, Jane Phillips Medical Center, St. John Broken Arrow and St. John Owasso. St. John also opened clinics in Sand Springs, Sapulpa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and helped create OMNI Medical Group, a primary care physician group now part of Ascension Medical Group St. John. During her tenure, Regional Medical Laboratory was also established. 

Thanks in large part to Sr. Therese’s vision, Marian Health System was founded in 1989, loosely combining the healthcare activities of the three Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother provinces: Wisconsin, New Jersey and Oklahoma/Kansas. Sr. Therese served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Marian Health System, from that time until it joined Ascension on April 1, 2013. Sr. Therese then served as Senior Executive Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascension Health and Executive Vice President of Ascension. She also continued to serve on the boards of the former regional systems of Marian Health System: Ministry Health Care, St. John Health System and Via Christi Health. She also served as an inaugural member of the Ascension Wisconsin Board of Directors until June 2019. Through the course of her faith-filled life of service, Sr. Therese achieved many honors and recognitions. She was a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and was recognized with its Regent Award in 1995. She served as President of the Tulsa Hospital Council from 1982-1983, the American Hospital Association Governance Committee, and served on the boards of the Catholic Health Association and the Oklahoma Hospital Association (OHA). In 1984, she served as the Oklahoma Hospital Association Board of Trustees Chair. She received the OHA W. Cleveland Rodgers Distinguished Service Award in 1999, was awarded the Association for Women in Communication 2009 Newsmaker Award, was awarded the Award of Merit in 2010 from OHA and held an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Oklahoma. She was inducted into the Tulsa Historical Society’s Hall of Fame in 2011. On Sept. 25, 2019, Sr. Therese left Oklahoma and Ascension St. John to retire in Oshkosh. 

The City of Tulsa Mayor, G.T. Bynum, proclaimed this day Sister M. Therese Gottschalk Day for her remarkable service resulting in the legacy of compassionate healthcare for the City of Tulsa, especially for those who are sick and vulnerable. “May God grant to Sr. Therese eternal rest.  Our prayers are with her and her loved ones,” Impicciche said.

Remembering Sister M. Therese Gottschalk, SSM

St. John’s Hospital (renamed Ascension St. John Medical Center) officially opened on February 22, 1926, but its story began nine years before, in 1917. 

The Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother (SSM), looking to establish a new medical ministry as they had in Wisconsin, Kansas, and New Jersey, purchased an 8 ¾ acre farm at the dusty corner of 21st Street and Utica Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Groundbreaking for the hospital did not take place until 1920, and as finances languished, the uncompleted hospital stood empty for three years until renewed interest by members of the Catholic Church and city officials finished the facility.

Hundreds of Tulsans donated funds in 1925 to complete the original St. John building, which opened the following year. So great was the need for a true stand-alone hospital (throughout its brief history, Tulsa’s early medical facilities tended to be converted houses) that patients flooded St. John’s days before the hospital was officially opened – the first birth occurred there more than a week before the opening, on Valentine’s Day. Ever since, this community has supported St. John Health System, and St. John has worked to return the favor by providing the best care to our patients and their families.

In the beginning, the Sisters of SSM were evident in every aspect of St. John’s operations – administration and kitchen duty, dispensers of medications from the pharmacy, and as tillers of the soil (where an eight-story parking garage now stands, the Sisters once had a good-size garden). Opening the same year as the hospital was St. John’s School of Nursing. Before it closed in 1976, the school graduated more than 1,400 nurses, including many of the Sisters who chose that profession as their mission.  

St. John faced many of the same problems as other medical facilities, including the polio epidemic – by 1949, the hospital had 10 operational iron lungs – but its biggest challenge was often space. In 1948, a new hospital wing added 125 new beds; by the mid-1950s, another wing added another 202 beds to serve the rapidly growing community. 

By then, St. John was becoming known as a city- and state-wide leader in healthcare. Tulsa’s first heart valve repair occurred there in 1955, followed by the city’s first successful pacemaker installation (1963), first coronary bypass (1969), Oklahoma’s first linear accelerator for cancer treatment, and Tulsa’s first neonatal intensive care unit (1971). That leadership continues today, with the state’s first da Vinci robotic surgical system used for prostate surgery (2005), the first hospital in eastern Oklahoma to receive Magnet® designation for nursing excellence (2010; re-designated in 2015), and, this year, a joint venture between St. John Health System and the Tulsa Cancer Institute – the Oklahoma Cancer Specialists and Research Institute – providing comprehensive oncology services to the region.

Today, Ascension St. John Health System presents medical excellence through six hospitals, and Ascension St. John Medical Group, a network of primary care physicians and specialists. And the health system serves those most in need, investing more than $10 million annually in the Medical Access Program and Community Health Equity Catalyst Strategy, serving Tulsa’s uninsured and underinsured populace; and presenting more than $9.5 million each year in community benefit.  

Marking St. John’s 100th Anniversary

Ascension  St. John awarded more than $15M in health equity-focused grants at their inaugural Legacy of Love Luncheon held Friday, February, 14, 2025.  This event brought together community leaders, health equity partners and representatives from each of this year’s 40 grant-receiving organizations to celebrate the catalytic and community-focused activity supported by St. John’s Health Equity Initiative. 

“St. John has been here to care for Tulsa and the surrounding communities for almost 100 years. This care extends far beyond the halls and walls of our hospitals and clinics. Through the work of our health equity team, we are able to extend our Christ-centered mission to improve the health of our neighbors in need and in the communities we call home. I’m proud that we can play a small part in making today and tomorrow better and brighter for our fellow Tulsans,” said Bo Beaudry, CEO of Ascension St. John. 

These grants are for direct operational and programmatic support, not for event related sponsorships or other marketing-related activities. A flagship program of the health equity institute is St. John’s Medical Access Program which provides operational, programmatic and underwriting support for area safety net clinics.

"For almost a century, Ascension St. John has been a pillar of care and compassion in Tulsa, and their Health Equity Initiative and this year’s investment of more than $15 million in local organizations is truly transformative for our community," Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols said. "Advancing healthcare access, uplifting underserved communities, and strengthening the well-being of our city will continue to impact the physical and mental health outcomes for Tulsa's children and families. Investments like this are essential in ensuring that healthcare is accessible, equitable, and tailored to the needs of our community, and we are grateful for Ascension St. John's continued commitment to Tulsa."

The 2025 Health Equity Grantees include the following: 

Health Outreach Prevention Education, Inc.

Alzheimer's Diversity outreach Services, Inc.

City of Tulsa on behalf of the Tulsa Fire Department

Ascension St. John Foundation provides $15 million in grants to support community health equity

The Ascension St. John Foundation honored our 2025 Nurse Scholarship recipients. These outstanding students represent the heart, compassion and dedication that define the nursing profession and our outstanding team at Ascension St. John.

A total of 34 student nurses representing 15 different nursing education programs received scholarships this year. They represented programs that include The University of Tulsa, Tulsa Community College, Rogers State University, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, Oklahoma State University and more. 

The foundation provided $82,000 in academic scholarships to nursing students from several eastern Oklahoma communities. We applaud their achievements and are so proud to help support their journey as healthcare professionals!

St. John Foundation scholarships are provided through three separate donor funds:

Applications will re-open in Spring 2026 for the next round of scholarships.

2025 Nurse Scholarship Recipients

Ascension St. John is adding a Level 1 trauma center to the area, bringing convenient advanced emergency care close to home.

One summer day in Tulsa, a well-known and loved school crossing guard named CR, was helping kids leave summer school when a speeding car ran a stop sign in a school zone and struck him with such force that he was thrown five feet before hitting the pavement.

The injuries were devastating. It included multiple broken bones, internal bleeding, head trauma and fractured ribs CR’s survival depended on immediate, specialized trauma care. Not just any emergency room.

Imagine if there was a Level 1 trauma center nearby that could have made a difference. Ascension St. John in Tulsa, Oklahoma is NOW a first Level 1 trauma center that could treat car injuries and more.

A Level 1 trauma center is the highest designation a hospital can receive for trauma care. These centers are equipped to treat the most critically injured patients 24/7, with:

Trauma-trained nurses and anesthesiologists

Advanced diagnostic and surgical technology

Comprehensive support staff and resources

This level of care can mean the difference between life and death as it did for CR.

While CR doesn’t remember the first 24 hours after the accident, he and his family will never forget what the trauma center meant that day. It wasn’t just a place for treatment.

And that lifeline is available to every member of the Tulsa community when the unthinkable happens—car crashes, industrial accidents, severe falls, or violent trauma.

In a growing community, having access to Level 1 trauma care can save lives. Until now, critically injured patients often had to be transported to Oklahoma City, delaying care. With a Tulsa-based Level I center, rural and underserved communities will have better access to life-saving care much closer to home. Ascension St. John Trauma Center brings specialized trauma care to treat some of the most complex and advanced injuries and conditions caused by accidents, strokes and other time-sensitive emergencies.

Our Level 1 trauma center attracts top talent and will be the hub of future life-saving research through the Ascension St. John Clinical Research Institute. With all these benefits, you can be assured that our comprehensive trauma teams will collaborate and quickly create treatment plans that are right for you and your family using top talent, the latest technology, and treatments in trauma care. 

Ascension St. John Tulsa’s first and only Level 1 Trauma center is committed to the highest standards in trauma care. 

If you or a loved one is experiencing a life-threatening emergency, go directly to the ER or call 911.

Ascension St. John Medical Center gives Tulsa its first Level 1 Trauma Center

On November 23, 2022, the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) announced that it would be increasing its suggested maximum annuity rates, effective January 1, 2023. The new rates replace the rates that became effective July 1, 2022. The ACGA’s decision to increase its suggested maximum gift annuity rates was triggered by the sharp rise in interest rates that started in March 2022 and has continued since July 2022. 

For most gift annuities, the new rates are 0.6% - 0.7% higher than the rates they replace. If you defer the start of payments for a year or more, the increase is even greater.

Ordinarily, you would expect a higher annuity rate to result in a lower charitable deduction. However, the new deductions available in January 2023 will be about the same as they were in July 2022, despite the higher ACGA rates. This is because in the second half of 2022 there has been a spike in the interest rate used to compute gift annuity deductions. The recent spike in this interest rate does have a negative effect; it has reduced the tax-free portion of annuity payments.

The combination of higher annuity rates and substantial deductions makes gift annuities even more attractive to donors seeking to make a gift and receive fixed payments for life.

Higher Annuity Rates as of January 1, 2023

Read the latest from the St. John Foundation and our health system

St. John Foundation News