Champions for the Cause

“Foundations make important contributions to expansion and redevelopment across the region,” says Fraser Health Board Chairman Gordon Barefoot. “Healthy relationships with foundations help foster community understanding and support for their health system.”

Adrienne Bakker is the chair of Fraser Health’s Foundations Council as well as president and CEO of the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation. “Most of the donors who give to RCH and other hospitals in Fraser Health are caring employers in the region, grateful patients themselves, or know someone who has received exceptional care,” says Bakker. “They’ve had care at a specific site from specific caregivers and physicians, and they’ve bonded with them. They’ve had such a wonderful experience that they want to give back to that specific project, piece of equipment or program, to help other patients.”

Bakker says foundations are a critical community partner for building upon government funding for things like capital equipment, improvements and upgrades, education for clinical staff, and research. “Basically, the foundations help fund that margin of excellence, from basic to the best,” says Bakker, who characterizes herself and her colleagues as “cheerleaders” for inspirational patient stories and amazing care.

Donating to any Fraser Health foundation can involve much more than just writing a cheque. Two of Fraser Health’s biggest donors contributed their support in very different ways. Here are their stories:

As dawn broke over a chill November morning last winter, the atmosphere inside Surrey multi-cultural radio station ReD 93.1 FM was hot with anticipation. Carefully laid plans for an all-day radiothon to raise funds for Surrey Memorial Hospital Foundation were about to be thrown to the airwaves. It was 6 a.m. when the first call went out to listeners and 10 p.m. when the last call came in. Final tally? A staggering $1 million. That’s nearly $60,000 an hour.

“It was a crazy day, but crazy in a good way,” acknowledges station president/owner Kulwinder Sanghera, whose brainchild the radiothon was. “We were all excited to be doing something for the community. Even though they were long hours, everyone had so much energy that they didn’t want to leave.” Kids clutching piggy banks and seniors waving $20 bills joined 1,500 others who showed up in person; one corporation cut a cheque for $60,000. “The mood was definitely celebratory at the end of the day,” says Sanghera.

It wasn’t the first time ReD-FM has staged such a marathon fundraiser — they’ve done it every year of the station’s three-year existence, raising more than $3 million in total for Surrey Memorial Hospital Foundation and BC Children’s Hospital — but it was the first time they’d broken their own record. In 2007, 2,000 people donated a total of $700,000. This year, with a gloomy economic cloud hanging over everyone’s heads, Sanghera assumed he’d have to lower his expectations. “It turned out to be the opposite. It was the largest, fastest number in one day. We were surprised, but very proud of the community.”

Sanghera says Surrey’s South Asian community makes up 30 per cent of the city’s 400,000 population, and 4,000 of them donated. “That’s only four per cent!” says an incredulous Sanghera of how much money came from so few people. “It’s a very giving community, and they feel good to be doing something to make the services around us better. Through the radio station, we reminded them on a daily basis how important it is to have good services available. If my son or mom or dad is sick, nothing is more important to me. What is important to me is their health; it’s important to any human being. So we feel, as a radio station and a community, we should be committed to the hospital.”

And the hospital is committed to them. The money raised, part of the Foundation’s $15-million capital campaign, will benefit the new Emergency department (ED), where the main entry will be called The Guru Nanak Emergency Services Front Entrance, after the 15th-century founder of Sikhism. Thanks to donors like those from Surrey’s South Asian community, the province’s busiest ED, which sees more than 70,000 visitors a year in a facility designed to handle 44,000, will be nearly five times the size of the current one when it opens in 2013.

Kulwinder Sanghera, a long-time Surrey resident and a board member on the Surrey Memorial Hospital Foundation, is already planning his next big initiative. “The philosophy at the station is ‘For the Community By the Community,’ and we plan to continue working with the community and Surrey Memorial. We want to do as much as we can.” Stay tuned.

Sandra Rankin is the Executive Director of the Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation and spearheaded a campaign called Your Health. Your Hospital. to raise $3 million to augment Fraser Health’s $5 million to expand Ridge Meadows Hospital. The specific need involved a new, larger Emergency Department and a new Ambulatory Care facility. The final tally on the build was $20 million when it opened in January 2009.

You wouldn’t expect race-car driving and an ED to have much in common, but they do: the need for speed. The driver speeds to win a race, the ED staff speeds to save a life. Now, with the expansion of Ridge Meadows Hospital, which essentially triples the old space, staff have a fast track to servicing a growing population speedily and efficiently. Part of that is thanks to the Greg Moore Foundation, which donated $500,000 to what was the largest fundraising goal ever in the Maple Ridge / Pitt Meadows area.

Greg Moore, of course, is the late, great Indy racer who fatally crashed during a race in Fontana, California, nearly 10 years ago. His father, Ric Moore, carries on his son’s legacy through the foundation.

“We’re pretty proud to see Greg’s name attached,” says Moore of the newly christened Greg Moore Emergency Room,” and he would be too. He loved Maple Ridge. He could have lived in Miami or Las Vegas or L.A. — anywhere closer to where he was racing — but Maple Ridge was home to him.  And he never said he was from Vancouver or B.C., he always said he was from Maple Ridge. So I think he’d be proud to see it.”

Ric Moore would like future patients to know that his son was a good person first, champion race-car driver second. “He did a ton of charity work on his own, he always did,” says Moore. “Even as busy as he was, he never refused. He felt he was pretty fortunate, and that if you’re lucky enough to be in a position to give back, you do.”

Moore says his hometown was good to his own business, Maple Ridge Chrysler, which he operated in the city for 31 years, so he was happy to accept the position of honorary chair of the campaign. Plus, his heart went out to the staff who toiled in the aging hospital. “I just really thought they desperately needed the upgrade. Also, it would be something that would carry Greg’s name again, so our foundation got behind it.”

Public launch of the campaign occurred in September, 2004.  Moore says the actual fundraising was pretty easy, despite the lofty goal of trying to squeeze out so much money from so small a town. Get the biggest chunk started, he was told, and everything starts to roll from there. Plus, he says with a chuckle, “I put the arm on some friends of mine.”

Moore says he was proud and impressed with the new Greg Moore Emergency Room and Patient Care Centre when he attended the grand opening January 29, 2009 with Premier Gordon Campbell and then Health Services Minister George Abbott. It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s modern. It’s even fit for a champion.

By Robin Roberts