PLEASE HELP ME MOVE MOUNTAINS FOR PATIENT CARE

This is a once-in-a-lifetime ask for support towards impacting lives (…I promise this will not become an annual ask)! I believe deeply in Markham Stouffville Hospital and not only have I been a patient but further experienced the beginning of life (as both my daughters were born there) through to the compassionate end of life care (as the Hospital team helped guide us through losses). Like so many people, we rely on our community hospitals when we need it but sometimes don’t realize where the funding of government stops and where our support is needed. We can’t take for granted our health care. We need to be advocates for our health and the health of our community hospitals. I am privileged to serve the Markham Stouffville Hospital and proud to have committed to an experience that will push me far out of my comfort zone to help create awareness and funding for the hospital as I join a group of individuals who have committed together for an 18 day trekking expedition to Mount Everest Base Camp (the highest mountain in the world)! Base Camp, which is 5,200 meters above sea level, was first established in 1924 by the British expedition that successfully summited, lead by Sir Edmund Hillary with Tenzing Norgay. To add to the uniqueness of our trip and with this being the 65th Anniversary of the Hilary Summit, our trek will be joined by Sir Edmund’s son Peter Hillary and Ben Webster will be leading and filming the anniversary Trek.

As a team, our goal is to help support each other’s success while helping our hospital move mountains to continue the care they are committed to and to help deliver a much needed new hybrid operating room (OR). I hope you will consider supporting me as I set out with this team on months of training to take a journey I never thought I would take in my lifetime. Your support is appreciated and as you can imagine not something I plan to come back to you with year after year. I am hoping you will help me climb out of my comfort zone to move mountains in support of care at Markham Stouffville Hospital.

Every day you make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the job and glory of the climb -- Sir Winston Churchill