The Board of Trustees for the Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital Foundation kicked off a community fundraising campaign on March 12 with the announcement of a gift from the Wood-Claeyssens Foundation.

The goal of the campaign, which kicked off with a reception for more than 200 community members at Bacara Resort & Spa, is to raise a total of $14 million to help rebuild the Goleta branch of Cottage Health System. To date, the foundation has raised $11.8 million, including a $5 million gift from Santa Barbara philanthropist Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree. The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation, a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit organization, issued a challenge grant where it will donate one dollar for every dollar raised, up to $1 million.

Other large gifts include a $1 million grant from an anonymous local family, $350,000 from the Santa Barbara Foundation and $250,000 from another anonymous source. Physicians at the hospital have donated $500,000.

Ground broke at the new hospital in March 2010, and the building is expected to be complete in the summer of 2014. Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital opened one of its new buildings on February 12. Both hospitals are being rebuilt as part of an mandate that requires all California hospitals to be retrofitted to be able to withstand a major earthquake.