50/50 draw exceeds expectations for Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation

The director of marketing and communications for the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation says the support for a recent fundraiser shows how much the community cares about the hospital.

Heather Vita said the success of the first 50/50 draw in February was well beyond their expectations, with the foundation getting almost $1 million dollars as its share of the draw.

Vita said the success of the draw was heartening.

"It's something great for Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario because the hospital provides service for people across the region," said Vita. "We haven't had something super exciting to look forward to. It was a good news story. "

For groups that relied on public events for fundraising, the arrival of the pandemic in March of 2020 and the need for social distance brought to a halt to the dinners and public auctions that were traditionally held to raise money.

The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation found itself facing this dilemma. Many of the group's fundraisers, including the Bachelors for Hope, involved getting a lot of people together in a room.

As it turned out, a time-honoured fundraising technique, especially at sporting events, helped to fill that void.

"I think we realized pretty early on that we weren't going back to normal after a couple of weeks," said Vita." I would say in the summer we started to concretely plan how we could look to the future and what we could do for our community and certainly for the hospital and in fundraising. And so the idea of the 50/50 came about."

Vita said the great thing about the 50/50 format is anyone can participate in Ontario as long as they are 18 or over, and you don't have to buy in person. She said it's been a great thing to be able to offer the draw to people and to be able to do it safely. She said the goal of the draw was just to make as much money as possible for the hospital.

"I think we were all hoping for a six figure draw," said Vita."And when it got to close to a million dollars, no one could have predicted that. We were just in awe."

Vita said a 50/50 will now be held every month, with the last Friday of the month being the grand prize draw. She said the jackpot for March is already over $180,000 and climbing, with the first Early Bird draw to take place Friday, March 12, for a thousand dollars.

"We're pretty excited about giving away some money," said Vita. "It's an exciting feeling to call someone and tell them how much they've won."

With the first 50/50 draw, the board was able to present a cheque worth $965,715 to Paulette Howe and Suzanne Gribben, two sisters from Thunder Bay.

Vita noted the money raised helps provide medical equipment that health care professionals need to be able to provide the best patient care possible. She said the hospital provides a capital list of equipment and depending on the money that's raised, the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation will fund quite a bit of that list throughout the year.

"Every time someone makes a donation, it goes directly to making patient care better," she said.

The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation is not the only hospital using the 50/50 draw format.

The Dryden Regional Health Centre has adopted the 50/50 format as has the Lake of the Woods District Hospital Foundation and the North of Superior Health Care group.