The Moody Foundation of Galveston has granted $15 million to Parkland Health & Hospital System to help build a new breast health center that houses screening, diagnostics and treatment under one roof.

For the last 18 months, Nancy Halbreich and Carol Seay have quietly led a campaign that has raised $35 million toward a $40 million goal to create the Moody Breast Health Center at Parkland.

Plans for the center and transformative Moody gift were revealed Monday evening at a gathering of supporters in Halbreich’s home.

Guests included Moody Foundation executive director Frances Moody-Dahlberg and her brother, trustee Ross Moody of Austin.

“Faster treatment will help save more lives,” Moody-Dahlberg said.

Parkland provides breast health services each year to 30,000 people, 98 percent of whom are women. It diagnoses and treats 400 breast cancer patients — about 20 percent of all cases in Dallas County.

Many of its patients are disadvantaged, uninsured or underinsured, which means they are linked to higher mortality rates from breast cancer and some other diseases, said Parkland president and CEO Fred Cerise.

“I don’t think people should get sicker or die sooner because they’re poor,” Halbreich said. “There really has to be equity in health care, of all things, there has to be equity in that.”

Parkland’s existing, aging breast center isn’t even on the the new main campus, and patients must trek to different locations for screening, biopsies, day surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and other services. One woman gave up on treatment because the process was so awkward, and she had to be coaxed back.

The new breast center will be next to the Ron J. Anderson MD Clinic and across from a DART station. Organizers are aiming for an opening by 2021, but the schedule isn’t set.

Key benefactors who have given $100,000 or more are Vicki and Peter Bartholow, Boone Family Foundation, Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, Laurie and Dr. Phil Evans, Hoblitzelle Foundation, Marguerite Hoffman, Horchow family, Joe M. and Doris R. Dealey Family Foundation, Carolyn and David B. Miller, Parkland Health & Hospital System Auxiliary, Margot and Ross Perot, Evelyn P. Rose, Bill and Gay Solomon, The Theodore and Beulah Beasley Foundation Inc., Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation and Jean and Tom Walter.