Gift of Life Transplant House, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing Mayo Clinic transplant patients high quality, affordable accommodations in a supportive home like environment, announces a leadership gift from the Anne and Henry Zarrow Family Foundation. The gift will establish an endowment as well as an expansion fund, enabling Gift of Life Transplant House both to sustain its current needs and plan for future growth.

Anne and Henry Zarrow were gracious and generous benefactors of Gift of Life Transplant House dating back to 1999, and their family is pleased to make this gift in their memory. In recognition of their generosity, the house at 724 Second Street SW will now be named “Gift of Life Transplant House:  Anne and Henry Zarrow Home.”

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“The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation feel very strongly in the mission of work of Gift of Life Transplant House,” says foundation director and daughter Judy Zarrow Kishner. Together with her brother Stuart Zarrow and the members of their family, they are pleased to carry on their parents’ tradition of philanthropic support.

The Zarrow Family is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Henry Zarrow got his start in business early on by opening a grocery store.  At age 22, he established Sooner Pipe and Supply Company, an oil and gas supply firm that became globally successful. Early in their marriage, Anne and Henry became dedicated philanthropists throughout Oklahoma, especially in the areas of education and children’s initiatives.  They were married for 65 years before Anne passed away in 2002. Henry sold his last company in 1998 at age 82, and he died in January 2014.

Gift of Life Transplant House was founded in 1984 by Edward Pompeian, a kidney transplant patient at Mayo Clinic. The first facility was an eight bedroom home located at 624 West Center Street. A second house was opened at 705 Second Street SW in 1995, the former home of Dr. E Starr Judd, which was purchased and expanded by Gift of Life Transplant House. In 2009 a third house – now known as the Zarrow Home –opened at 724 Second Street SW.

Today, the Gift of Life Transplant House campus features two homes with 87 beds. The facilities are often fully occupied by patients and caregivers who travel to Rochester from throughout the region, country and world.

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