ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. (AP) – A former Ames Department Store is being transformed into a regional cancer treatment center to serve patients from northern Vermont and New Hampshire.

The Norris Cotton Cancer Center-North in St. Johnsbury is scheduled to open in mid-September.

A fund-raising push is on to open the facility on schedule.

“We’re going to need the help of our friends in the region to make it a reality,” Robert Fuehrer of Peacham told a crowd of about 300 people who toured the unfinished center.

in the former Ames building on Tuesday.

Fuehrer and James Tibbetts of Colebrook, N.H., are co-chairmen of the Community Capital Campaign that will supply funding to complete the center.

More than $1.2 million has been raised in a silent donation drive since January toward a $2 million goal.

The capital campaign needs to raise at least $768,000 more from small donations or philanthropists, Fuehrer said.

The money will be used to furnish the cancer center with high-tech equipment, Fuehrer said.

The entire project is expected to cost $9 million, said Deborah Kimbell, a spokeswoman for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, in Lebanon, N.H, the lead partner in the project.

In addition to Dartmouth and Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, the other hospitals collaborating on the project are North Country Hospital in Newport; Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital in Colebrook, N.H.; Weeks Medical Center in Lancaster, N.H.; Littleton Regional Hospital in Littleton, N.H.; Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin, N.H.; and Cottage Hospital in Woodsville, N.H.

The St. Johnsbury cancer center will serve patients in northern Vermont and New Hampshire who currently drive hours for treatment, Fuehrer said.

“In the first year the cancer center is open, patients in our region who receive radiation therapy will travel 1.1 million fewer miles and will spend 20,000 fewer hours traveling to that treatment,” Fuehrer said.

St. Johnsbury’s cancer center could become a model for rural facilities throughout the country, Dr. Mark A. Israel, director of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at DHMC, told the crowd.

Norris Cotton Cancer Center-North will provide state-of-the-art care, including the latest in radiation and medical oncology, Kimbell said. Specialty services will be available through the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at DHMC, which is one of 39 federally designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

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Information from: The Caledonian-Record, http://www.caledonian-record.com

AP-ES-06-22-05 1354EDT