For the first time in over 10 years, the United Way Peterborough & District has met its annual fundraising campaign goal for its partner agencies and other initiatives.

Supporters gathered at a celebratory event on Thursday evening (April 24) at the McDonnel Street Community Centre in Peterborough, where the organization revealed it has raised $1,506,198 for the 2024-25 campaign.

The United Way had set a $1.5 million goal for the campaign, which ran from April 1 last year (with the campaign goal announced in September) until March 31 this year, and attributes the success of the campaign to support from community members, local workplaces, and a number of new fundraising initiatives.

It is the first time in over 10 years that the United Way has met its annual campaign goal.

“Reaching this goal is a powerful testament to what we can accomplish when we work together,” says United Way CEO Jim Russell in a media release. “I’m incredibly proud of our team and deeply grateful to everyone who contributed, whether through time, donations, or spreading the word. This campaign has shown the true heart of our community, and it’s an achievement we can all celebrate.”

Peterborough real estate agent Shirley Turner, who was the 2024-25 campaign cabinet chair, says she “couldn’t be more thrilled” by the “incredible achievement.”

“The energy, enthusiasm, and generosity we’ve seen from every corner of our community — friends, families, businesses, even complete strangers — has been nothing short of amazing,” Turner says. “We set out to make this campaign not just meaningful but fun, and it’s been such a rewarding journey to see that vision come to life.”

New fundraising initiatives introduced during the campaign included Peterborough Pajama Day, where the community was encouraged to donate $5 and wear their pajamas to work. Over 100 people employed at dozens of local businesses participated in the event.

Another successful strategy was the Double Your Difference initiative, where an anonymous donor matched all new donations in full as well as all increases from existing donors of at least 10 per cent over their 2023 gift.

For Trent University, whose workplace campaign raised a total of $135,543 from faculty, staff, and retirees, the gift-matching drive helped inspire 36 Trent employees to become new donors and donate $19,000.

Peterborough Performs V: Musicians United To End Homelessness, a benefit concert with 14 local music acts held on two stages at Showplace Performance Centre on March 26 accompanied by a virtual auction, raised $36,375 for the United Way.

The record amount, which was almost $4,000 more than last year’s fourth annual benefit, brings the five-year total raised for the United Way to $149,458.

Any further donations made to United Way Peterborough & District will contribute towards the 2025-26 campaign, which will be launched in September.

The Peterborough Public Library is hosting an interactive community art installation called “The Red Dress” during the week leading up to and including the National Day of Awareness for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people (MMIWG2S+), also known as Red Dress Day.

The installation will be on display in the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Legacy Space at the library’s main branch at 345 Aylmer Street North in downtown Peterborough beginning Monday (April 28) and continuing through Red Dress Day the following Monday.

Community members are invited to participate in the installation by contributing red fabric, yarn, beading, or other textiles to help create a large, collective red dress.

“Our hope is really just that people take a moment to pause and reflect,” the library’s community engagement assistant Désirée Kretschmar told kawarthaNOW.

“Every piece of fabric added to the dress represents a life, a voice, and a shared commitment to remembering. This isn’t just about the past. The violence and loss continue today, and the conversation needs to keep going.”

In Canada, more than six in 10 Indigenous women have experienced physical or sexual assault in their lifetime, with some estimates suggesting that around 4,000 Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been murdered between 1956 and 2016. According to a 2015 report by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the proportion of Indigenous women homicide victims has continued to increase since 1991 and, by 2014, was almost six times higher than the homicide rate of non-Indigenous women.

First commemorated in 2010, Red Dress Day is meant to honour and bring awareness to the thousands of women, girls, and two-spirit people who have been subjected to disproportionate violence in Canada. It was inspired by Métis artist Jaime Black’s REDress Project installation, wherein she hung empty red dresses in representation of missing and murdered Indigenous women as “an aesthetic response to this critical national issue.”

The interactive community art installation at the library will begin at noon on Monday with an opening ceremony and smudge with drumming in the Legacy Space, and smudges will be held every morning at 10 a.m. until May 5.

“Whether someone adds to the dress, comes to a smudge, or just takes a quiet moment to be present, that’s part of the message too,” Kretschmar said. “These lives are not forgotten.”

The Red Dress project has been developed in partnership with Niijkiwendidaa Anishnaabekwewag Services Circle and the Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre.

“The Red Dress installation provides a visible, community-based way to honour those who have been lost, hold space for those who continue to seek justice, and foster meaningful awareness,” reads a media release from the library.

“The library invites everyone to visit the installation, take a moment to reflect, and add to the collective dress. Each piece of fabric represents a life, a voice, and a shared commitment to community care and remembrance.”

The library’s Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Legacy Space was established in 2023 as part of an initiative by the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund, founded by late Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie along with his brother Mike Downie and the family of Chanie Wenjack.

Chanie was an Indigenous boy who had been taken away from his family home in Ogoki Post, located on the Marten Falls Reserve in northern Ontario, in 1963 and forced to live at a residential school in Kenora. In 1966, the 12-year-old boy died from exposure after he fled the school and attempted to walk the 600-kilometre journey back to his home.

The Peterborough Public Library was the first public library to be recognized as a Legacy Space, which is intended to be a safe and welcoming place where conversations and education about Indigenous history and the collective journey towards reconciliation are encouraged and supported.

For Diana Freeman, one of the most difficult parts of her cancer journey was the loss of hope she endured between the time she received her initial diagnosis and when she knew what her path forward would be.

“The experience you have during this journey really depends on your emotional strength,” she says. “How are you supposed to care for your kids and your family and yourself when you don’t know what your life is going to be like?”

That’s why, as a grateful patient of the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC), Freeman is sharing the story of her cancer journey and fundraising in support of PRHC Foundation’s $60 million campaign for world-class healthcare close to home.

Through her own fundraising initiatives, Freeman has already raised $5,800 for the PRHC Foundation to help reimagine cancer care at the regional hospital by introducing digital pathology — a cutting-edge technology that is transforming the ability of healthcare professionals to rapidly detect and accurately diagnose cancers and make treatment decisions.

Many people don’t realize that, while government funds a portion of hospital operations, it doesn’t fund hospital equipment or advances in technology like digital pathology.

“Hospitals like PRHC rely on the generosity of donors to support their doctors, nurses, and staff with the tools they need to provide lifesaving care to patients,” says PRHC Foundation president and CEO Lesley Heighway. “When those tools become outdated or new innovations become available, it’s up to us to raise the funds to ensure PRHC can invest in the advanced technology that supports faster, safer, more accurate care for everyone in our region.”

Freeman’s cancer journey began last March when, at 38 years old, she found a lump on her breast during a self-assessment. After sharing the news with her husband David, she went to her family doctor, who arranged for a mammogram and ultrasound at PRHC.

As vice president of client services and a partner at Peterborough advertising agency Outpost379, Freeman occupied her mind by focusing on her work — despite the fact that she was researching cancer patient stories for a client. However, when she received an initial breast cancer diagnosis, her fears were heightened as she did not yet know how aggressive or severe the cancer was.

“I don’t do well when I don’t know the full information, so I don’t get my hopes up and I also don’t start panicking,” she says. “But even just with the heaviness of cancer, you can have all these strategies in place to protect yourself, but that word and the idea of cancer is beyond what any strategy can manage.”

While Freeman and her husband put on a “strong face” when telling her sister and mother about the initial diagnosis that weekend, she found herself unable to send her two young daughters, Olivia and Emily, to school on the following Monday.

“I couldn’t say goodbye to them,” she recalls, admitting that her “wall started to break down” and her emotional strength “started to dwindle.”

“There was nothing there to grab on to in terms of stable hope or the reality of it yet. Without anything to hold on to, there is no stopping those negative thoughts and the idea of not being around anymore.”

When Freeman received a prognosis that her breast cancer was treatable, her hope returned because she knew her path forward and knew she would be supported close to home by the healthcare professionals at PRHC.

“It was great to know the treatment plan, and to have objectives and goals is really helpful,” she says. “But there’s nothing compared to hearing ‘We’ve got you and we have the things in place to give you a better life to get you through this.'”

Freeman underwent a double mastectomy, followed by months of chemotherapy and radiation. Although the physical toll of treatment was significant, as with many cancer patients, it was the delay between the initial cancer diagnosis and the prognosis that created the most anxiety for Freeman.

“The scary part is being left in the dark before you get the prognosis and understanding what hope you can hang on to. Not having that information is the hardest part, even for someone like me who is very strategic but is also an optimistic person.”

That’s why the PRHC Foundation is committed to bringing digital pathology to the regional hospital’s laboratory as part of its $60 million Campaign for PRHC. The lab manually processes all tissue samples from PRHC and four partner hospitals. For cancer patients, no diagnosis or treatment decision is made without the results from those tests.

With digital pathology, high-resolution scanners will digitize the physical glass slides with precise imaging to improve accuracy, reduce turnaround time, and allow for more efficient collaboration with other specialists.

“Right now, every tissue sample is analyzed using microscopes and further consultation requires couriering the physical samples to specialists in Toronto,” says PRHC pathologist and medical director of laboratory medicine Dr. Katie O’Reilly. “This means that the painful hours and days of not knowing add up for patients.”

“Digital pathology would transform care. It would give cancer patients the answers they desperately need, faster, when every second counts. Without it, patients in our region will be left behind. Every single day we use outdated tools, we miss opportunities to provide faster, potentially lifesaving diagnoses.”

When PRHC pathologists have access to digital pathology, medical oncologists like Dr. Neera Jeyabalan will be able to get diagnoses faster and reduce the time a patient has to wait for their treatment plan — a delay that she labels as “one of the difficulties of the cancer journey.”

“Many patients end up waiting several weeks from when they first discover a lump, for instance, to knowing exactly what type of cancer it is and what treatments are in store for them,” she says. “That waiting and that unknown can be very challenging. If we can shorten that wait time and patients know what the path forward looks like, there is enormous relief even in the face of a devastating diagnosis like cancer.”

Last year, PRHC saw 23,000 cancer patient visits, which is a huge increase compared to the 3,000 to 5,000 patient visits that Dr. Jeyabalan estimates for 2007 when she first started working at PRHC.

“The demand for our services is high, which means that we need to rise to the occasion and make sure that everyone is receiving timely care because cancer is such a life-threatening illness,” she says.

For Freeman, getting care close to home at PRHC meant she did not need to travel outside of the region and could remain with her family while receiving treatment. For example, she was still able to take her daughters to the school bus stop in the mornings. She was also able to rely on a neighbour to take her to medical appointments.

“What close to home means is that now you have a greater circle of support and greater resources — not just from a hospital care perspective, but from your own personal circle,” Freeman says. “It would have been very challenging if we had to go somewhere else. Being able to receive treatment at PRHC was a huge weight off my shoulders.”

Wanting that same great care close to home to be available to others has inspired Freeman to donate her time and share her story in support of the PRHC Foundation’s campaign. Her hope is that no cancer patient will to have to wait long for their results or a treatment plan.

“A cancer diagnosis is manageable when you have something to hold on to and get through,” she says. “It starts with hope, and it starts with having the right information, the right resources, and the right support to get you through it. When someone else is managing your cancer, you just need to manage being yourself and staying strong.”

As for Heighway, she is grateful to Freeman not only for her generosity — she is both a donor to the PRHC Foundation and a volunteer — but for her willingness to share her cancer journey to raise awareness, funds, and inspiration.

“Her openness has resonated with so many in our community and will undoubtedly inspire others,” Heighway says. “It’s people like Diana and her supporters — our neighbours, colleagues, and friends — who will make it possible to bring digital pathology to PRHC, empowering world-class care close to home.”

To learn more about cancer care at PRHC and to make a donation, visit the PRHC Foundation website at prhcfoundation.ca/what-to-support/areas-of-care/cancer-care/ or call 705-876-5000.

This branded editorial was created in partnership with the Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation. If your organization or business is interested in a branded editorial, contact us.

This spring, Peterborough residents Sue Sauvé and partner Ian Attridge are donating to support GreenUP’s native plant propagation program. Their $10,000 donation comes with a challenge to the community to match their generosity.

Together with Sue and Ian, the goal is to raise a total of $20,000 to support Ecology Park.

Sue has been a long-time supporter of GreenUP, and she and Ian are known to many for their commitment to environmental initiatives across the community. They are making this donation because now, more than ever, there is an urgency to invest in the resilience of the environment.

“Supporting GreenUP’s Ecology Park to grow native trees and plants is a tangible, local action that I can take towards increasing biodiversity and mitigating climate change, and now, to support our urban and rural forest canopies to recover from the ice storm,” says Sue.

A biodiversity crisis is unfolding across the globe. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that populations of all fauna are in decline. Even species that are not endangered are seeing population reductions, with average animal populations at just 68 per cent of what they were in 1970.

The climate crisis is bringing more severe storms, as well as destructive pests like the emerald ash borer. In the face of devastating damage done to the local canopy by the derecho of 2022, coupled by the recent ice storm, one could be reluctant to replant, yet trees are needed now more than ever.

Trees are habitat. They improve air and water, cool with their shade, support complex ecosystems, and are the original effective means of sequestering carbon.

The Peterborough region needs strong, native trees like oak and ironwood; quick-growing trees that can rapidly capture carbon from the air, like hackberry and willow; trees that feed pollinators, such as basswood and black cherry; and rare southern species like sassafras and blue beech.

The saying goes that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.

In 2024, GreenUP planted over 1,600 trees. With the generous support of the community, GreenUP will plant even more in 2025. Together this action will ensure that the beautiful species of native plants and trees that call this region home can thrive.

Through their donation, Sue and Ian empower GreenUP not just to restore what was lost, but to ensure a healthier, more sustainable future for all living beings in the region.

GreenUP Ecology Park will use the funds in the following ways:

• Build air pruning beds and plant cages to grow native species
• Offer more volunteer opportunities by providing staff capacity and buying additional hand tools and safety equipment for planting and for invasive species removal
• Replant rare and regionally significant native species to replace trees that were damaged by the ice storm.

Each year, the Ecology Park Native Plant and Tree Nursery makes over 200 species available to the community. GreenUP has been investing for years in the capacity to grow native plants and trees locally.

This year, the GreenUP native plant propagation program has seen more plants growing in-house than ever before. Currently 55 native species are taking root in GreenUP’s downtown office, including American chestnut and black oak. The Ecology Park plant propagation project aims to grow over 5,000 plants from seeds and cuttings.

“In the wake of natural disasters like the recent ice storm, it’s critical that we restore our natural environment, not just for the health of our ecosystems, but for future generations of people and all beings.” Ian says. “Caring for the land is a vital part of our shared responsibilities.”

As a consultant-instructor at Trent University’s School of the Environment, and through his volunteer work with local environmental and Indigenous ally groups, Ian continues to demonstrate the close connection between reconciliation and environmental protection.

One of the teachings of the First Peoples is to care for all our relations, who include the land, waters, plants, and animals. Spending time with plants is one way to learn about these relations. Learn what they look like, learn their names, learn where they like to grow, and what likes to grow with them.

“With our donation, we are hoping to be the catalysts for increased funding for GreenUP Ecology Park so they can continue to do the work that they do so well,” says Sue.

Support GreenUP in growing native plants and increasing community capacity for conservation. Donate today at greenup.on.ca/donate-now/ to help match Sue and Ian, protect biodiversity locally, and ensure GreenUP reaches their $20,000 goal. If a donation isn’t possible, please consider sharing the fundraising campaign on social media. Find GreenUP @ptbogreenup.