Sam Jam helps send kids to summer camp
Camp YMCA Kanawana’s 13th Annual Sam Lazarus Street Hockey Jamboree fundraising event, held Aug. 27 behind Royal West Academy in Montreal West, drew 80 players and 150 spectators — and raised more than $27,600. The event featured teams made up of alumni and current staff of the Laurentian summer camp.
Proceeds from the Sam Jam, as the event is also known, support the Sam Lazarus Fund, which helps disadvantaged children experience Kanawana. The fund has raised $296,670 since its inception in 2004 and given more than 80 children the opportunity to go to camp; among them are children who have endured great trauma, such as survivors of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and refugees, including some who arrived in this country without their parents and some who are orphans.
The great majority of contributions to the Sam Lazarus Fund are small donations from family, friends and members of the Kanawana community who knew Sam Lazarus and his family, said Sam’s mother, Janet Torge. “To me, that’s why the amount is impressive,” she said. Learn more on the Sam Jam page on Facebook.
Lazarus was a longtime Kanawana camper and counsellor. In the fall of 2003, after camp, he left for Ghana, where he worked as a volunteer teacher at a daycare in Kumasi; he contracted malaria and died in January 2004. He was 25.
He was honoured posthumously in 2013 by the Kanawana community with the Pip award, which recognizes contributions of distinguished camp alumni — those who best honour the camp’s spirit, expressed in its motto: Non Nobis Solum, Latin for Not for Ourselves Alone. The award was shared with the rest of the Lazarus family.
The Pip award was established by Kanawana alumnus Andrew Caddell in 2008 as a memorial to his father, Philip “Pip” Caddell (1913-2004), a longtime Montreal executive and community volunteer, and to his son James Caddell (1973-2005), a soldier in the Canadian reserves, a United Nations peacekeeper and a public servant. Both attended Kanawana.
A special screening of the 2016 movie Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will take place on Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Cinémas Guzzo at Marché Central, 901 Crémazie Blvd. W., in support of the Eating Disorders Program at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. Opening remarks will be made by Dr. Mimi Israël, the institute’s psychiatrist-in-chief.
The ticket price of $20 includes entrance, popcorn and a drink. Tax receipts will be issued for donations above the $20 ticket price.
The Eating Disorders Program at the Douglas was created in 1986 to provide specialized treatment for adults. With more people seeking treatment — there were 486 referrals in 2015, up from 412 in 2010 — the cottage used in the program is to be renovated and expanded to increase the number of in-patient beds to nine from six and the capacity for day patients to 20 from 15. Proceeds from ticket sales and donations will go directly toward the renovations.
There is funding from the provincial government for the expansion — but a further $150,000 is needed for such improvements as a living room space in the cottage, an enlarged kitchen and better lighting “to make it more convivial, to make it feel more like a home,” said Caroline Apollon, director of development at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute Foundation.
The movie night event is being sponsored by Cinémas Guzzo, the Douglas foundation, Imprimerie Marion Inc., which printed the ticket and posters, and industrial designer Katharine Amyotte, who designed them; it is being organized by a former patient, Pauline Belliveau, with the support of the foundation.
“I know that people aren’t comfortable talking about mental health and eating disorders, but it is such a worthwhile cause,” Belliveau, a 23-year-old Concordia University student, wrote to Applause. She suffered from an eating disorder for six years and completed treatment in the Douglas program in April. “I hope not only to raise funds, but also to raise awareness and start a conversation. One of the most dangerous symptoms is isolation and silence, and I truly believe that it is time to speak up.”
Said Apollon of Belliveau: “She’s right. It’s fantastic to see how devoted and dedicated she is.”
To buy tickets, make a donation or learn more about the program and the institute, go to douglasfoundation.qc.ca or to the One Night for the EDU page on Facebook. Or contact Apollon at the foundation at 514-762-3003.