WHATGIVES Summer 2018

Education, Medicine and Music:
The Great Equalizers
Bell’s Difficult Road a Journey Paved with Gems
When we sat down with longtime CCF fundholder Dr. Thaddeus John Bell to talk
about life’s twists, turns, and second chances, we had no idea he was about to
go into the hospital himself. “I’ve been working to meet with everyone I can. I
met with five different partners last week.” (We’re thrilled to report he’s past this
now, and doing well.)
The partners range from heads of medical organizations, to Cumulus and Apex
Broadcasting, to famous jazz musicians, to everyday patients and Barbershop and
Beautyshop Talk attendees who Dr. Bell reaches—and preaches to about healthcare
tips—through his nonprofit, Closing the Gap in Healthcare.
The North Charleston physician has been working for decades to address health
disparities* and improve outcomes for patients, especially in the black community.
His passion for helping others is surely the secret sauce for his success, for it’s
a success that has come simultaneous with the emotional blows of tremendous
family loss. His son Thad passed away in 1992 just after finishing undergrad,
due to unexpected complications from a knee injury. His daughter Tonisha—who
helped him co-found and direct his organizations—was taken in 2015 by cancer.
“The purpose of
the Lowcountry
Jazz Festival is
to help fund the
scholarships, but it
also helps us stay
on television and
radio to give health
information to the
community, to fight
health disparities.”
-Dr. Thaddeus Bell
There is no “up side” to these tragedies, but Dr. Bell
chooses to focus on the positive. When his son died
and life insurance policy funds came in, Bell says, “My
wife and I decided we didn’t need the money. We said,
let’s take the money and start a scholarship in memory
of Thad.”
And thus, the first of two Bell family scholarship
programs managed at CCF was founded. Supporting a
Morehouse student (Thad’s alma mater), the program
provides funding each year for up to four years.
Dr. Bell didn’t just stumble upon CCF as a philanthropic vehicle. Having been one
of the first African American medical students at the Medical University of South
Carolina (MUSC), Dr. Bell received scholarships from the Saul Alexander Fund.
“$250 a year in 1972 was a lot of money. It was very, very helpful,” he remembers.
“After I graduated, I almost forget about it. Then somebody from the Community
Foundation called me and said ‘our records indicate that you received money
from the SAF.’ So somebody came to interview me about receiving these funds!
Frankly that was the only assistance I got to go to medical school.”
Bell later practiced at MUSC, becoming the Associate Dean of the College of
Medicine and eventually receiving a joint appointment as the Director of the
Office of Diversity for the entire University. “I recognized that all of the students
of African American descent and other ethnic minorities had one problem in
common: most of the time they didn’t have any money.”
He was inspired to start a second scholarship program, specifically for all underrepresented
students at MUSC. Knowing he needed an initial $250,000 to endow
(Top) Dr. Bell in 2015 with his daughter, the late Tonisha Bell Alston, founding
Program Director of Closing the Gap/The Lowcountry Jazz Festival; (bottom) Brian
Culbertson and bandmates jamming at the 2017 Lowcountry Jazz Festival.
a fund, the Lowcountry Jazz Festival was born. “Some of my friends recommended
that we do a jazz festival. And that was very frightening to me. I didn’t know
anything about putting on a jazz festival!”
But his daughter Tonisha, then an MBA student at USC, knew it would work. Tonisha
helped Bell connect the fundraising arm of the Jazz Festival with his Closing
the Gap in Healthcare education series, all to fund his scholarship programs and
keep educating the community about health disparities year-round.
Ten years later, Bell’s daughter Tiffany now helps him run the organizations. And
there’s no slowing down. “My goal is to raise a million dollars—to get the fund
corpus to that amount so we can give $10K scholarships to six students a year,
covering all six colleges at MUSC.” Bell believes increasing the number of minority
healthcare professionals going back into their communities to educate and give
back is the long-term answer for addressing the health disparities.
Dr. Bell continues to hold seminars (including the free Jazzing with Sugar diabetes
event held on Jazz Fest weekend), reach out to schools, get sponsorships from
cities and hospitals and grantors, all in an effort to help save lives. “I tell people
of color, if we’re ever going to change and if we’re ever going to live a quality of
life and a longevity of life our white counterparts enjoy, we’ve got to change our
attitude and how we think about healthcare.”
*A health disparity is when the burden of disease is greater in one group of people
as opposed to another. For example, African Americans die from cancer more than
any other group of people. Reasons for health disparities include lack of access to
facilities, lack of education about symptoms, and fear based on fact (such as the
Tuskegee experiments) but continuing as mistrust for modern medical professionals
and treatments. Visit www.closingthegapinhealthcare.org to learn more.
Visit www.lowcountryjazzfestival.com for tickets to the 10th Annual Festival,
dedicated to the late Tonisha Bell Alston. To read more about Dr. Bell, visit
coastalcommunityfoundation.org/news/our-impact/thaddeusbell.
4 coastalcommunityfoundation.org