$ 200 million in funding celebrated for renewed Children’s Hospital
$ 500 million project: Corporate, individual donors come up big for major addition and makeover for facility
THAT’S A WRAP: “Nonis Fired” is how this newspaper’s April 15, 2008 edition proclaimed the turfing of Vancouver Canucks’ general manager Dave
Nonis. An adjacent headline read: “$ 500M rebuild of Children’s Hospital launched.” Of that: “About $ 200 million of the project will come from corporate and individual donors.” On Shaw Tower’s 17th floor Thursday, campaign chair
Don Lindsay reported that the sum was in hand.
BCCH Foundation chair David Podmore and former chair Kevin Bent were there. Ditto tycoon Jim Pattison, RBC Royal Bank regional president Graham MacLachlan and longtime supporters Stephanie Carlson, Isabel Diamond and Marjorie-Anne Sauder.
Putting influential folk in a room is one thing. So is putting $ 200 million in the bag. More vital is what comes out of BCCH in the form of recovered youngsters eager to realize their ambitions. One, Simran Sarai, 13, recounted the 30 months of chemotherapy that scoured out her lymphoblastic leukemia five years ago.
Today, the straight- As student plays soccer ( striker), runs cross- country and “is the class clown. When everyone needs a laugh, that’s me.” She plans to graduate from McGill or the University of Northern B. C. and become a journalist. Maybe she’ll file a story headlined: “Nonis Rehired.”
• BUT FEAR ITSELF: This week’s Non- Partisan Association civic- election campaign launch drew supporters to what former fundraising chair Rob Macdonald called “an inclusive party of every gender, age, race and religion.” Many were amused by Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson calling them “angry old white men.” Their reason wasn’t his worship’s slag- your- opponent intemperance, but that it suggested something very valuable for campaigners: that he may fear them.
• ARIA READY: Vancouver Opera’s Overture gala attendees dined on the QE Theatre stage recently one night before Verdi’s Don Carlo opened there for the first time since 1974. Chef Ned Bell served Spanish-themed chow, with jazz singer Nikki Yanofsky and Karen Pitkethly’s flamenco dancers adding sizzle. The gala supported educational and other programs for the 50,000 youngsters VO brass hope will join traditionally older patrons at performances.
• KEEP BEATING: With the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s 10th- anniversary gala due June 6, supporters revved up with chair Charmaine Crooks, honorary chairs Peter and Jane Scott and foundation COO ( soon the be CEO) Adrienne Bakker at Kyle and Janelle Washington’s ‘ home.’ In fact, the Washingtons live at Eagle Harbour and the West End penthouse is Kyle’s old bachelor pad where a weeklong Playboy Girls of Canada photo session took place.
Foundation chair Dr. Doug Clement — also a former Olympian — wants heart and stroke’s death rate to fall 25 per cent in six years, and the risk factor 10 per cent. Of recovering from stroke himself, he said: “I could run better than walk because running is in part a spinal reflex that doesn’t require the same reaction in the cerebellum. It’s like a knee- jerk reaction.”
Robert Conconi reacted by pledging to match any 10 gala donations of $ 10,000.
• BUSY WEEK: City Square VP- director Naz Panahi and Sarah Wood co- chaired the recent Daffodil Ball that reportedly raised $ 1.1 million to help Canadian Cancer Society treatment programs for children. Attending B. C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong promised to match fundraising up to $ 12.5 million. Also there, man- aboutcinema Leonard Schein will head a $ 50- million campaign for a cancer prevention centre, likely at 10th and Ash Street.
Out again Thursday, Panahi fronted a soiree to benefit Arthritis Research Centre of Canada programs for patients, 60 per cent of whom contract the ailment between ages 30 and 60.
• LONG WAY HOME: De Jong delivered another $ 1 million Thursday. That was at the Courage To Come Back Awards gala, where an after- dinner whip- round raised $ 2,164,950. Awards founder- organizer Lorne Segal’s father Joe chipped in $ 50,000. Others got close. Honorees were Kennedy Baker, Paul Caune, Jackie Hooper, Brenda Gardiner and Kristine Stanbra. Another, Joe Calendino, is an expelled Hells Angel whose alcohol and drugs addictions left him “lying on a jail cell floor where I realized I wanted to do everything I could to prevent kids from going down that same path.” Cautiously released, he founded the Yo Bro organization and got his wish.
• RIP: Feeling unwell, Punjabborn Jagat ( Jack) Uppal excused himself from a Simon Fraser University room- naming ceremony April 29. He died May 4 at age 89 after giving $ 100,000 to recognize SFU students’ community service. One of the many Uppals served was former B. C. Supreme Court Justice and distant cousin Wally Oppal. When he speaks at Uppal’s funeral Sunday, Oppal may recall practising criminal law, “when Jack sent me people from the mill to defend on charges. He looked after all the ne’er- do- wells.”
Uppal looked after many others, and not only Indo- Canadians, whose right to vote he fought for. Still, that designation displeased him. “I just wanted to be a Canadian, not a hyphen Canadian,” he said. He was that all right.
• DOWN PARRYSCOPE: To be and not to be — that is the answer.