BARRY’S BAY – Local business owners and residents have come together to create a unique fundraising program for the Madawaska Valley Hospice.
The newly formed Friends of MV Hospice was unveiled on September 19 at the Sands on Golden Lake in Deacon.
The group consists of Gerald and Wanda Tracey of the Eganville Leader, Michel Lavigne and staff of The Valley Gazette, Kirk and Helen Mandy, Brian McCarthy and Sean Fitzgerald from McCarthy Propane and McCarthy Fuels, Kevin and Maureen O’Connor, Harry and Mary Searson, Jerry and Cathy Summers, Tim and Linda Summers and George and Sheila Wilcox.
The group is challenging the community to donate to the MV hospice. In return, the Friends will match, dollar for dollar, up to $90,000.
As an incentive to donate, anyone that contributes has a chance to win a handmade cedar chest, donated by carpenter Greg Hoare and artist Renee Paterson. The piece is valued at more than $1,000.
All of the money donated goes towards the Giving Wings to Hospice Campaign’s $450,000 goal. The funds will help with the capital costs of the two-bed hospice, which is currently being constructed within the hospital.
St. Francis Memorial Foundation Director Toni Lavigne Conway credited Gerald Tracey for recruiting fellow friends and colleagues and forming the Friends.
“It’s worth taking the time to acknowledge someone who takes the opportunity, when you go to them, to listen to what the needs are that you are bringing to them. To take the time to understand the project that you brought to them and to then [for them to] say I am personally committed to the project and I am going to do what I can to make this project happen,” Lavigne Conway said. “That’s what we got when we approached Gerald.”
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