Saint John’s Health Center Foundation has announced that Michael and Gretchen Wayne will receive the 1999 Caritas Award at its seventh annual Award gala on Saturday, October 30, at the Regent Beverly Wilshire.

The Waynes are being honored for their commitment to Saint John’s and the community as a whole. Their involvement with Saint John’s is multi-faceted. Not only is the hospital’s Cancer Institute named for Michael Wayne’s late father, the legendary actor John Wayne, but their youngest son, Christopher, spent the first eleven months of his life in a pediatric critical care unit at the hospital. Today, Christopher Wayne is a healthy 32-year-old. This year’s gala is a fund-raiser for Saint John’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. All proceeds from the evening will benefit the unit which cares for premature and critically ill new born babies.

Michael Wayne is chairman of the board of the Cancer Institute and is active in all aspects of the Institute’s development, especially its research studies. His wife is a member of the Institute’s Auxiliary Board of Directors and co-chairs the Institute’s Annual Benefactors’ Dinner.

The younger Wayne is chairman and president of Batjac Productions, which was started by his late father, and CEO and COO of Wayne Enterprises. He’s on the boards of Mutual of Omaha Insurance, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, the Industry Health Network and the Orange County Sheriff”s Advisory Council.

Gretchen Wayne is a past president of the Social Service Auxiliary, a member of the board of the American Ireland Fund, the Development Committee for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and a member of the Costume Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The Caritas Award Gala, a black tie event, is being coordinated by the Foundation’s Irene Dunne Guild, which was created kin 1987 to honor the late actress Irene Dunne, “the First Lady of Saint John’s,” and now has a membership of 90 women. In addition to raising funds, members of the Guild give hands-on service at the hospital.

Previous recipients of the Caritas Award include Jimmy Stewart, Nancy Reagan, the W.M. Keck Foundation, Angela Lansbury, Robert Wagner and Sister Marie Madeleine, president of Saint John’s.

(c) Santa Monica Mirror