Hospice reworks biggest fundraiser
Pandemic restrictions drive volunteers to dial for donations
In the good old days — any time before 2020 — Doris Fraser would have been at her station by now, under a tent each morning on the lawn out front of Hospice Niagara.
Her job, like the other volunteers, was to sell tickets for the annual five-car draw, the biggest fundraiser of the year.
The cars are still parked on the lawn, but the volunteers aren’t.
All the selling will be done online or by phone this year, throwing an element of uncertainty over the campaign.
“We’ve never done a call program before for the lottery, but this year we need to,” said Alicia Merry, fund development manager for Hospice Niagara.
“We aren’t going to have those face-to-face sales with events being cancelled and all the restrictions with COVID-19.”
Hospice Niagara gets only partial government funding, roughly 60 per cent.
“The other 40 per cent, which equates to $1.8 million, has to come through community donations and fundraising efforts,” said Merry.
Last year the five-car draw netted about $325,000 for the hospice. This year, they’re more reliant than ever on volunteers like Fraser to make it work.
Tickets are on sale, $25 apiece or five for $100, for cars and cash prizes worth $216,000.
The early bird draw for $10,000 is June 22, while the big draw for the five cars plus five $1,000 bonus prizes is Aug. 3, on the civic holiday weekend.
Fraser is optimistic for success. She and her flip-phone have already started selling.
She has volunteered for Hospice
Niagara since 2005, shortly after her husband, Don, passed away. She started as part of a knitting group, making Toronto Maple Leafs sweaters for teddy bears.
Since then she has helped out in the kitchen, too, and last year was one of the top four ticket sellers for the five-car draw, selling nearly 125 tickets on her own.
“I’m one of the fixtures,” she said with a laugh.
In a way, working there helped her process her own grief over the years: “I always said, I wish hospice was ready (when her husband was dying) because I would have loved to have him in there.”
She likes the in-person part of selling and says some of the stories she hears from people whose relatives spent their final days at Hospice Niagara are “heartbreaking” yet also inspiring.
“You get better treatment there … and you go in dignity,” Fraser says.
“They’re a very caring bunch. I know a lot of the girls who work there, some of them would come out and do a shift with me in the booth” selling tickets on the lawn.
Last year she sold more than $3,000 worth of tickets; so far this year, she’s at about $600.
It’s all done using the land line in her apartment and the flipphone she bought about 15 years ago after her grandson told her she might need it if her car broke down.
“I’m not into all that other crap. His phone, he can book you a place to stay if you’re travelling,” she says. “I said no, I’m not interested in all that stuff. I just want it for emergencies.”
Fraser, who will turn 88 in June, does use her car a lot.
She volunteers at hospice and in local seniors’ homes, plays darts in a couple of leagues and carpet-bowls at a downtown church, though COVID restrictions made that impossible this year.
“Doris has so much energy and spunk. She’s a go-getter,” says Merry, adding volunteers “are the heart of the five-car draw.”
Hospice Niagara has COVID-19 restrictions in place that limit visiting and who can enter the building, but its community programs like day hospice and a bereavement group have continued online.
It’s not only the five-car draw that has been affected, so have other fundraisers like golf tournaments. Courses are open but a big part of the day – the meal in the dining room – isn’t possible this year.
That’s forced charities all across Niagara to be innovative.
“It’s like planning these events from scratch, and even though all of them have been in place for 10 or more years, we’ve had to start at Day 1, it feels like,” says Merry.
To buy tickets for the five-car draw, go to 5CarDraw.ca or phone Hospice Niagara at 905984-8766.