Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation: 2023/2024 Annual Report Update

February 23, 2024 was bittersweet for the Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation. That was the day of the official opening of the Jerry Coughlan Health & Wellness Centre (JCHWC); but one special person was not there…Jerry.

Cutting the ribbon to open the building that day was only made possible because of Jerry and his generous $9 million gift to the Ajax Pickering Hospital Foundation. 

Jerry Coughlan passed away in 2021 after spending over seven decades in the house construction industry and building thousands of homes throughout the Region of Durham. He was a man of vision, but also very practical; he knew that the primal need of housing would only be matched with the primal need for health care for the families that lived in each home. As his widow, Lyn Dunlop-Coughlan, said during her opening remarks, “Without health, we cannot be who we were meant to be. Jerry has once again left us better than he found us. It is now our turn to continue in the legacy he started and give to our region’s health-care system.”

Another exciting date for us this year was on December 7, 2023, as we drew the winning ticket for the 2023 car raffle.

You could feel the excitement building in the cafeteria at the Ajax Pickering Hospital as team members from the surgical program, as well as Ryan Boyer, Chris McMurray, and John DeCesare from Boyer Chevrolet Buick GMC in Ajax, celebrated the success of the sell-out activity.

Ryan pulled Lakeridge Heath’s Anusya Chelvanathan's winning ticket and the very next week she was driving her new 2023 Chevrolet Malibu RS!

This year's car raffle funded five new stretchers for the surgical program. Ryan, Chris, and John delivered two of them directly to the staff right after the draw!

We also continued our partnership this year with Toronto-based Indigenous landscape design firm, Miinikaan Innovation and Design, on the Indigenous Meadow.

From preparing the Meadow’s plan to leading the planting, we’re grateful for how the team has freely shared their knowledge and experience with us. Miinikaan also designed the Indigenous Community & Healing Garden that is located beside the Meadow, which is now flourishing and being maintained by volunteers.

We’re proud of how we’ve been able to expand our efforts, with 40 volunteers coming together in April 2023 to help plant another 1,200 plant seedlings in the Meadow.

Miinikann’s plan for the Meadow was simple: 

• Include seeds and plants that are predominantly native species.
• Have a range of bloom times to ensure nectar source throughout the season for pollinators.
• Have winter features (e.g., tall grasses and ornamental seed heads on flowers).
• Include rare species and some plants with medicinal value.

And finally, seeds collected from the Meadow’s plants are harvested and added to a “seed library” – a collection of seeds that can be shared with other meadows and gardens throughout the province who want to create or expand their own Indigenous landscapes.