INDIANAPOLIS — Sidney Eskenazi grew up on the south side of Indianapolis during the Great Depression. His father died when he was 13 years old and, one week later, Eskenazi started his first job. Even during these hard times, he grew up watching his father, and later his uncle, donating food to charitable causes. This generosity inspired the young boy so that today he, along with his wife Lois, continue the trend of giving back, though on a much larger scale.
In 2011 the IU alumni, who met while attending college on the Bloomington campus, gave a $40 million donation to the Eskenazi Health Foundation, which financed the building of the brand new Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital.
The public hospital campus was built as a replacement for the Wishard Memorial Hospital in downtown Indianapolis. It opened in December 2013 and today it is on track to becoming a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified campus.
This certification, which is given by the United States Green Building Council, is reserved for buildings that have a positive influence on the health of their occupants while saving resources and promoting the use of clean energy and sustainable practices, according to the council’s website.
“I really notice that they make an honest effort to be environmentally conscious here,” Brooke Arthur, a nurse at the hospital, said. “Everything is really nice and efficient. Compared to the other hospital I work at, it’s easy to see the difference.”
The eco-friendly design began with the way the hospital was built. According to its website, 70 percent of the waste from construction ended up somewhere other than a landfill. Twenty-nine percent of the materials used to build the hospital had some recycled content and 25 percent of the materials came from local sources.
The hospital also reports a 40-percent decrease in potable water usage after minimizing unnecessary water use with things like automatic, low-flow faucets and waterless urinals.
One of the most visible signs of the foundation’s devotion to the environment is the Sky Farm, located on the hospital’s roof.
The 5,000-square foot area is used to grow more than 50 different types of plants, like blueberries, tomatoes and onions, according to a foundation press release.
The garden is run by Growing Places Indy, a nonprofit organization focused on urban agriculture, and is open to all of the campus staff and patients. The food grown on the Sky Farm is used in the cafeteria’s salad bar as well as cooking classes around the city, according to Curtis Franklin, the team leader for one of the hospital’s food service areas.
Food production is not the only way the hospital promotes sustainable eating habits. It also minimizes waste after meals have been eaten.
“We don’t just throw away food here,” Franklin said. “People send their leftover food back into a kitchen and then I put it through the pulper, or that’s what we call it, to churn and grind it all up. It makes it much easier to biodegrade when we put it back into the soil.”