Business Leaders Give to WellStar Foundation for New Paulding Hospital

Sue and John Wadsworth of Hamby’s, Inc., have helped start off 2013 with a brighter future for many lives in Paulding County thanks to their generous donation to the WellStar Foundation.

The Wadsworth’s, who have invested their time, money and hard work in Paulding County for more than 25 years, provided a generous donation and will have two patient rooms at the new WellStar Paulding Hospital named after them.

“We decided that we wanted to donate to a project that would last and make a difference in people’s lives,” said Sue Wadsworth. “WellStar Paulding Hospital seemed like a natural fit. The old hospital served Paulding County for more than 50 years. The new hospital with its location and size should touch the lives of many more. Therefore, we feel that the donation to the hospital was the right thing to do.”

The new 250,000 square foot hospital is scheduled for completion in April 2014 and when opened will include four surgical suites, 40 emergency exam rooms and 56 patient rooms. There is capacity for an additional 56 patient rooms and generous donations like the one from the Wadsworth’s will bring the hospital closer to the goal of having all rooms finished.

Hamby’s is based in Paulding County and has been family-owned and operated since 1965. Gordon and Louise Hamby founded Hamby’s Septic Tank and ran it until the mid 1980’s when they retired and sold the business to their daughter, Sue and her husband.

The Wadsworth’s established a commercial division of Hamby’s by investing savings into new equipment and reinvesting profits to hire additional employees. The commercial side includes plumbing, cleaning grease traps, a lift station service and pump maintenance. In 1995, they were able to open their own waste water treatment facility, Dixie Processing, Inc. to treat waste water pumped by their residential and commercial trucks.

Today, Hamby’s employs 20 employees and has a fleet of vehicles. Hamby’s phone number has been the same since they opened in 1965 and they pride themselves on repeat customers and/or referrals. If you call it’s more than likely John Wadsworth, Jr. (the third generation) will be the one designing a solution for numerous, and sometimes complicated, problems for customers.

“Our family truly feels blessed and over the years we have contributed to various charities and causes,” Mrs. Wadsworth said. “Sometimes we buy Christmas gifts for a family or make donations of food and clothing, etc. Over the past two years, we have watched the progress of the WellStar Paulding Hospital construction. We checked to find out how it was being funded and found that WellStar is a non-profit healthcare system.”

“We live in Paulding and so do our children, Cindy (our daughter) and Brian Hardison, their daughter, Katherine, and John Wadsworth, Jr. (our son) and his wife, Vicki, and their sons, John Wadsworth, III and Jared Wadsworth. My father (Gordon Hamby) is presently at WellStar Paulding Nursing Center and my mother (Louise Hamby) was with him until her death last April. Each of our family members has had at least one urgent or major health issue. When those times occurred, a Paulding Hospital was the only thing that helped.”

As a not-for-profit healthcare system WellStar reinvests 100 percent of every dollar donated into new programs and enhanced services for the benefit of the communities it serves. There are many donation options at the WellStar Paulding Hospital, to include various naming opportunities at different dollar amounts. For more information, contact Gene Weeks at gene.weeks@wellstar.org or 770-956-6676.