Sudbury's hospice needs your help

Hospice in Sudbury to hold radio fundraiser The pandemic has been hard on fundraising efforts at Maison McCulloch Hospice, but officials hope a radio fundraiser Wednesday will help.

Sudbury — The Maison McCulloch Hospice is two days away from hosting its first-ever Care-A-Thon event. Officials had to try something new after many fundraising events were cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19.

“One of the challenges was that our butterfly release, which we usually have in the summer, will likely not be able to be done at Science North, and we normally get around 500 people letting go butterflies,” said Gerry Lougheed, the chair of the Sudbury Hospice Foundation. "So, we started the first-ever annual Care-A-Thon for the hospice."

Lougheed said the government only provides 60 per cent of the funding for the hospice, and he says the other 40 per cent must be raised by the community.

“Every month the expenses to keep the doors open is $63,000. It would be a wonderful Sudbury miracle if we could raise in excess of $63,000 on Wednesday to pay an entire month's expenses for our hospice," said Lougheed.

Lougheed said money raised from the Care-A-Thon will go to paying the bills and keeping the doors open.

CTV News partners at Pure Country 91.7 will be co-hosting the event and they say this will be the first of its kind for the station.

“When you tune in, you’re going to hear some of the hospice stories, and we’re going to be asking a lot of people why is the Maison McCulloch Hospice so important to you,” said Bryan Cooper, Pure Country 91.7 morning show host.

"We are really trying to reinforce the message that this is a place that needs your support, especially right now."

The hospice provides end of life care and the organization's vision is that "everyone should be able to live and die in peace, with dignity, free of pain, surrounded by loved ones, in the setting of their choice."

The Sudbury Regional Police Association is sponsoring the event, just recently presented a $10,000 cheque to the hospice.

“We wanted to show the community that the police family cares about everybody in the community and because the hospice is something that is available to everyone, no matter race, gender, age, anything that we wanted to make sure that it maintained free,” said Randy Buchowski of the Sudbury Regional Police Association.

The event will be held on Pure Country 91.7 radio on July 8 from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m.