Kishwaukee Community Hospital’s fundraising club will kick off its annual drive this Thursday at 6 p.m. with a meeting of local volunteers.

The club is seeking 700 members this year, said Dr. Robert Skabo, the drive’s membership chairman. Skabo said membership in the club requires a $100 donation to the hospital.

The club was established in an attempt to develop funds to defray the cost of hospital equipment, Skabo said.

e said two-thirds of the money raised this year will help to pay for the hospital’s new computerized tomography scanner which will cost about $700,000. Skabo said the other third of the money will be placed in an endowment fund.

Skabo said the endowment exists in case the hospital needs money to fall back on. A hospital spokeswoman said this fund now contains $254,732. She said the total receipts of all the money raised by the club since its beginning in 1981 is $492,124.

Last year the club surpassed its goal of 600 memberships by 23 people Skabo said. He said in order to get 700 members this year, the club will be seeking between 100 and 125 new members. He said this is necessary because he expects at least some of the people who contributed last year to drop out of the club.

Skabo said about 100 local volunteers will be helping with this year’s drive. He said both old members and prospective new members will be contacted by telephone or through the mail.

Skabo said he hopes to increase the membership to 1000 or more within the next few years.

In the past three years, money from the club has been used to help finance the hospital’s new rapid X-ray film changer and its cardiac monitors and coronary care equipment, the spokeswoman said. She said the money also was used to help pay for the remodeling of the hospital’s day surgery center.

Anyone interested in joining the club should contact Kishwaukee Hospital’s community relations and development office at 756-1521, extension 3419.