This year’s “top billing” goes to Canada in celebration of our 150th birthday.
There were expensive parties all over the country, and all we did to celebrate was to humbly continue to do what we do best:
“make grants to outstanding Canadian charitable organizations offering unique and inspiring programs or projects for the benefit, improvement, and development of Canadian society.”
We gave approximately $6.3 million in 2017 for the benefit of Canada, just as we did in 2016. Of the 162 grants made in 2017, which ones come to mind? How many can you remember? How about our grant to The Trans Canada Trail Foundation? What about our support of the Eenou-Eeyou Community Foundation and how we help Canadians bring their talents to help people in other parts of the world, through USC Canada and Academics Without Borders? Don’t forget about the compassionate care we help with at Casey House in Toronto, and the facility we’ve helped to build for the L‘Arche Homefires community in Wolfville. Then there’s Goodwill Alberta and a social impact project. We need to remind ourselves of the scholarships and bursaries from sea to sea that help to finance Canada’s future leaders’ education. Not to mention world class research all across Canada in cosmology, neuroscience, rare diseases, cancer, diabetes and its effects on Canada’s Indigenous Peoples, and epidemiology. Our work with the less fortunate in Canada in Toronto’s Regent Park, Vancouver’s lower east side, and the homeless youth and adults in some of our large cities also cannot be forgotten.