Community mourns Dr. Barakett
In the week that has passed since his death, the sheer scale of the impact that Dr. William Barakett had on his community has been made clear in the outpouring of love and condolences shared both in casual conversation in the Knowlton area and in the variety of more public forums where the news of his passing was shared.
Ron Creary Executive Director of the Butters Foundation, which Barakett served as President until he was forced to step down by illness earlier this year, remembered the doctor as a man of great integrity who made a significant impact on the work of the foundation through his role as a fundraiser.
“Over the course of almost 20 years we had three major campaigns for a series of projects which netted over $10 million,” he said. “Without his leadership, that never would have happened.”
Although Barakett got directly involved with the organization in the year 2000, Creary said that the doctor’s work with the Butters Foundation dates back to the 1970s, when patients moving out of the Butters Centre and into homes in the Knowlton area came under his care.
“He was well known to not discriminate with people who needed his help,” the Executive Director said, pointing out that he was also a doctor known to make house calls whose dedication to the causes he believed in was unwavering. “He was a good friend.”
Barakett’s dedication and work with groups like the Butters Foundation, the BMP Hospital Foundation, and, more recently, Dunham House, was part of the reason for his appointment to the Order of Canada in 2002. In his citation for
CONT’D