By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
HiTOPS Inc., the Princeton-based health resources provider for teens, has announced that it will rename its Wiggins Street health center in honor of the J. Seward Johnson Sr. 1963 Charitable Trust. The renaming is to honor the Johnson charitable trust, which recently bestowed a $500,000 legacy endowment gift on HiTOPS.
”They have been an absolutely wonderful supporter for us,” going back over a decade, said Julie Davidson Meyers, HiTOPS’ director of development and marketing. Previously, the J. Seward Johnson Sr. 1963 Charitable Trust had made gifts to HiTOPS to help fund its annual operating budget, she said, with the December endowment gift a generous offering to help HiTOPS improve its long-term budgeting.
The $500,000 gift is restricted to HiTOPS’ endowment fund, and is intended to generate donations in support of the organization’s mission of promoting adolescent health and well-being, according to a HiTOPS release announcing the renaming of the health center, which will take place at a ceremony at the health center at 5 p.m. on April 20.
At the ceremony, HiTOPS Adolescent Health and Education Center will cut the ribbon on its newly named health center. During the event, HiTOPS will highlight several new programs and services that the health center is offering to youth in the community and throughout the state, according to the organization.
With funding from the Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, HiTOPS is providing depression, mental health, and eating disorder screening to all clients who come to HiTOPS for services. Susan G. Komen For The Cure funding provides breast health education and support, while Church & Dwight Co. Employee Giving has enhanced and expanded HiTOPS’ outreach to male clients, according to HiTOPS.
The HiTOPS smoking cessation program, iQuit, funded by the American Legacy Foundation in Washington, D.C., was recently presented at the Society for Adolescent Medicine National Conference and the results of this program will be displayed at the April 20 event, according to HiTOPS. The smoking cessation program has a Web site, www.iquitathitops.com.
”Once thought of as an organization that primarily provided reproductive services for young women, we have really grown and expanded to meet the demands of our adolescent population,” said Health Center Director, Sandra Zordan Friedman, in a released statement. HiTOPS continues to provide sports physicals for males and females, prevention visits, reproductive health care, HIV testing and counseling, and teen-friendly referrals for any issue that cannot be resolved at the health center, according to the organization.
For more information about the HiTOPS Health and Education Center, visit www.hitops.org. To make an appointment at the health center, call 609-683-5155 ext. 211.

