A true community effort has allowed Lawrence Memorial Hospital to meet an ambitious fundraising goal.

LMH Endowment Association leaders announced Wednesday that they had reached the $8 million goal for the capital campaign that began last summer. The campaign will contribute to a $50 million project that will expand the LMH maternity facilities and provide new facilities for its emergency room, intensive care unit and surgical suites. Those facilities will allow LMH to provide better, more convenient services to its patients.

The completion of the $8 million campaign is impressive in several ways. First, the goal was a stretch. A number of people in the community may have doubted that the hospital could raise that much. Those doubters obviously have been proven wrong.

Another notable aspect of the campaign was the number of people it involved. Kathy Clausing, LMH’s vice president and chief development officer, said that about 200 volunteers worked on the campaign, which drew about 2,000 donors. There was a handful of gifts of $500,000 or more, she said, but the goal only was reached because of the many smaller gifts from people not only in Lawrence but also in Baldwin City, Eudora and Tonganoxie. The hospital was particularly proud that 70 percent of the LMH staff were donors to the campaign.

Local residents already are seeing the campaign benefits. New private rooms have been completed and are housing the ICU until it can move into its new home in the east tower. LMH hopes to move the emergency department into the first floor of the tower by February, followed by the ICU on the second floor and expanded maternity facilities on the third floor. The existing emergency department will be remodeled into new surgery suites.

Hospital officials hope the capital campaign has fostered a special relationship between its workers and donors and their community hospital. It’s their hospital, the hospital they and their families and friends will turn to when they need medical care. LMH continues to expand its services to allow more local residents to obtain needed treatment without leaving Lawrence.

It’s great that local residents appreciate the importance of having a progressive and financially solid hospital in Lawrence and are willing to contribute their time and money to support it.

Congratulations to the LMH Endowment staff and everyone who worked on or contributed to the successful capital campaign.