With 11 fundraising events over two weeks, officials with the Children’s Treatment Centre Foundation of Chatham-Kent are breathing a huge sigh of relief.
Sunday marked the Build for the Kids campaign finale, announcing a fundraising total of $540,843, fulfilling the foundation’s commitment to raise $10-million locally for furnishings, equipment, and sustainability of the new, expanded facility.
CTC Foundation President Mike Genge was overwhelmed with the community’s support.
“The events, and all the sponsors, and all the people that just came up to me and went ‘Hey Mike, here’s $1000 bucks.’ I had one person walk up to me Friday night at the Halloween Bash at Red Barn and said here’s $3000.”
Genge says there were so many shows of support in the final days of the campaign, including an 11th hour donation from Jean Marie and Lucille Laprise of $36,000.
“The most generous community is Chatham-Kent in Canada as far as I’m concerned. With the amount of people that we have and the size of our population, we always come through.”
The Ontario government has committed $58.96 million toward the total cost of the $65.91 million, 58,000‐square‐foot facility.
The new building, currently under construction on McNaughton Avenue West, will provide additional space to reduce wait times for rehabilitation services such as speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and autism services that are provided to thousands of children in the community.