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When a retired Southwestern Ontario farmer turned 90 earlier this year, he decided to celebrate with something big – and altruistic.
John Toonen of Delhi donated $50,000 to the Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre.
“I’d been thinking about it for a long time,” said the former tobacco and ginseng farmer. “I watch TV and see all those little kids in the hospital suffering. I’m kind of soft on that.”
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Kayla Kreutzberg, a spokesperson with the Children’s Health Foundation, the fundraising arm of the London Health Sciences Centre, said Toonen’s donation will go toward supporting pediatric surgeries at Children’s Hospital, where more than 4,000 procedures are done annually.
“I’m hoping that maybe some people will get a little inspiration from what I’ve done,” Toonen said.
Carol Groeneveld said her father has always been generous with his family, which included seven children. When he was thinking of making his donation to the hospital, he asked his family for their support.
“He said it would take away from our inheritance,” Groeneveld said with a little laugh. “We said, ‘It’s your money, you do what you want.’”
Toonen says he got his inspiration to give by the transformational gift made by his late friend and neighbour, Archie Verspeeten, to the hospital’s cancer program. Verspeeten and his late wife Irene donated $27 million to London Health Sciences Centre over the years, including $20 million to London’s cancer treatment centre – now named the Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre – to fight the disease that took the lives of two of their sons.
Half the money will be used to improve patient care at the centre and to fund cancer research and fellowships for oncology specialists.
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