Jory Pritchard-Kerr has spent nearly 40 years spreading the message about the positive impact that donations have had on Collingwood's hospital, and one harrowing day at her son's bedside experiencing that message first-hand.
In 2005, the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital Foundation, with Pritchard-Kerr as president and CEO, embarked on a campaign pitched by the radiology department to purchase a picture archiving and communication system for about half a million dollars.
"It was hard slogging to make people understand why we needed it," said Pritchard-Kerr, who admitted to not fully understanding the system or its purpose herself.
But they did raise it thanks to donors who trusted the foundation and hospital to use their money well.
"We had just had the celebration that we raised the money and the radiologist came in and said to all the donors, 'This is what we're doing,' and I still didn't really get it," she said.
"And then my son had an accident."
Just one day after celebrating the successful implementation of the new photo archive, Pritchard-Kerr was in the hospital with her son following his CT scan and there was no radiologist on site.
Hospital staff used the new photo archive system to have a team in Toronto read the images and diagnose him with two brain bleeds. Following successful neurosurgery, her son recovered, though it was a long road.
"I sat in his room when he got back here, and I wrote a letter to the five top donors who stood up and said, 'I don't know what this is, but I'm going to help you,' and I told them, 'I'm sitting in this room today with my son because of you,'" recalled Pritchard-Kerr. "The neurosurgeon down in Toronto said, 'If this boy survives at all, it'll be because of what they did in Collingwood.'"
"I mean, that's impact," said Pritchard-Kerr, a mom of three boys, who is heading into retirement on June 30, when she plans to spend most of her time with her six grandchildren.
"In the end, it saved my son, but it's saved so many other people, too, and I think back to that all the time, and I think that's why we do what we do."
It's been 37 years since Pritchard-Kerr was hired as the first full-time staff member tasked with foundation work, though at that time her job also included director of communications for the whole hospital.
She was hired at the tail end of a $4-million campaign to cover a renovation of 80,000 square feet of existing space and an addition of 40,000 square feet to the Hume Street location. The renovation and addition took three years, and hospital work continued throughout.
One of her first campaigns was to raise $800,000 for a replacement X-ray unit.
"We called it the 'drive to save lives,'" recalls Pritchard-Kerr.
Today, she estimates the foundation has raised about $100 million since she started her work there, following her work on the YMCA build campaign and with Red Cross.
Pritchard-Kerr moved to Collingwood with her husband in 1984. He worked in the Shipyards until they closed, and then went into HVAC. All three of her boys were born in Collingwood and still live in the area.
For 12 years, Pritchard-Kerr volunteered — with the hospital foundation board's blessing — for the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, eventually chairing the international association.
It's an impressive feat for a foundation president from a 72-bed hospital, but Pritchard-Kerr brought a Canadian perspective and need forward in the association.
Her work earned her a 2022 Si Seymour Award for distinguished leadership in the healthcare philanthropic community.
In her role as president of the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital Foundation, Pritchard-Kerr had to make herself accessible and known not just in the community but in the hospital.
Department heads knew they could come to her with their ideas for new equipment, programs and innovations, and she could help through the capital campaign process.
That's how Collingwood General and Marine Hospital ended up with a comprehensive simulation training program spearheaded by Dr. Jesse Guscott, which includes adult, child and infant mannequins, plus the computer programs necessary to run scenario simulations for training.
Donors, too, came to trust her and the foundation with big amounts.
It's because of a regular donor that the foundation's current campaign to replace a mammography unit was expanded to include two mammography units, a replacement and a second unit.
The hospital foundation is the organization responsible for raising all the money needed for purchasing equipment or renovating the current space.
Currently, a section of the basement across the hall from the foundation office is closed off while crews build an MRI suite. The province announced two years ago it would fund operations for an MRI machine at Collingwood's hospital, and the foundation was charged with raising enough money to buy the machine and renovate the space to fit the machine.
Last year, donors supported hospital foundation campaigns for several new radiology machines, including a CT scanner and X-ray machine.
Within the last couple of weeks, Pritchard-Kerr said she had lunch with an anonymous couple who presented her with a $5-million cheque for the hospital foundation.
"That's not the first seven-figure cheque they've given," said Pritchard-Kerr.
Her work, and the work of the foundation board and its eight other staff, has been paving the way for the big job of raising at least $100 million toward building a new hospital.
Not only did Pritchard-Kerr help secure the donation of land for a new building at Poplar Sideroad, which the province has finally agreed to support; she and her team have done the groundwork to make sure they can raise what is needed for the building.
"It's been an exercise in frustration, waiting and waiting," she said. "We have so many donors who we know will support the project, but they wanted to make sure that it was going to a brand-new hospital. Having to raise money to renovate this building would have been a disaster."
When the news broke that the province would support a new build on a new site, Pritchard-Kerr was with her grandkids at Disney World in the Star Wars part of the park. She started calling donors, and immediately they were committing to $2 million and more.
"So, that was really exciting," she said.
The campaign for the new hospital launches publicly in April. Pritchard-Kerr said the foundation plans to raise at least $100 million, and likely more than that.
The money from the foundation will have to cover 10 per cent of the construction costs and 100 per cent of any site preparation costs. The foundation is also on the hook for 100 per cent of the equipment and furnishings inside the hospital.
By then, most of the major radiology machines like the CT scanner, MRI and X-ray will need to be replaced, too.
The County of Simcoe has committed to $20 million for the hospital, but beyond that, Pritchard-Kerr said she couldn't say publicly how much of the $100 million has already been pledged.
"We didn't go into this blind," she said. "We made sure that we have the backing of the community ... The interest in the new hospital is really powerful, and I think people recognize that to be able to build a state-of-the-art hospital, everybody needs to step up."
Pritchard-Kerr said there's an element of bittersweetness at leaving her office before the new hospital is built, but that is about eight years away.
"It would have been nice to finish off the campaign with my team," she said, "but I'll only be a phone call away."
Starting July 1, she plans to spend more time with her grandchildren, and find some volunteer opportunities. She'll also do more gardening.
"I'm an avid gardener, but I'm not a good gardener," she said. "I love to get in there and dig."
The hospital foundation has already begun searching for a new president and CEO, and plans to have a replacement announced by Pritchard-Kerr's last day on June 30.
Pritchard-Kerr is not involved in the hiring process for her replacement, but she offered some advice for the incoming president.
"You build the relationships and the money comes," she said. "Building strong, trusting relationships with people is probably the number one thing to do."
She also encouraged the next leader of the foundation to continue working with other local charities, many of whom do work to take care of people who would otherwise end up in the hospital — for example, Hospice Georgian Triangle, Home Horizon, and the Collingwood Youth Centre.
"It's been such an honour," said Pritchard-Kerr, directing her final thought to the community. "It's been an honour to be able to serve in this position and meet so many fabulous, generous, kind people. It's really been great."
