LA Free Clinic to Change Name

L.A. Free Clinic to change name in honor of gift

By Mary Engel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 3, 2008

The Los Angeles Free Clinic will change its name next month to the Saban Free Clinic in honor of a $10-million donation, the largest in its 41-year history, from philanthropists Haim and Cheryl Saban.

The gift, which the clinic plans to announce today, will be used to create an endowment, said clinic co-director Abbe Land.

It comes almost 25 years after Cheryl Saban -- then a divorced, working mother of two with no health insurance -- sought care at the clinic's Beverly Boulevard branch. The professionalism and kindness of the doctors and nurses impressed her deeply, she said.

Two years after that visit, Saban's circumstances changed dramatically when she married Haim Saban, who made his fortune as the producer of the children's show "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" and is now chairman of Univision Communications.