What began at a visioning session of the Oliver Rotary Club in 2011, has over the last six years turned into a much needed, successful registered charity. The Highway to Healing Support Society’s mission is to assist local families with their travel expenses incurred when they are receiving medical treatment for their children outside our area.

2017 began with a bang! With a unanimous vote our society enlarged our support area to include Okanagan Falls, Osoyoos and Area A of the Regional District of the Okanagan Similkameen, we revised our vision statement and our Policy and Procedures to recognize the expanded service areas. Over the last two years we have had the support of a generous benefactor, combined with the continued support of our community members and our fundraising efforts we have a healthy bank balance that has allowed the expansion. What we thought was many years down the road has come to fruition quite quickly and unexpectedly. We are thankful!

Joan and Ernie spent time reformatting our Constitution and Bylaws to ensure we meet the new requirements of the BC Society Act, we are grateful to Joan for assisting Ernie with this exacting job, they did fabulous! We continue to miss Joan, we have not quite filled the void she left with her retirement to the island.

We have financially supported 5 families this past year gifting a total of $12,000.00 dollars.

Alesha reached out to the families we have assisted over the past few years asking for their assistance in providing testimonials, we have received letters of appreciation from several of them, these offer us insight and assist the board in the decision making with regards to the amount of funding required for families when travelling. As a board it is important to have feedback from the families that are assisted by the society, we are thankful to those that responded.

We have been active within our communities, Ernie & Gail attended an Osoyoos Rotary Meeting raising awareness that we have expanded our area of assistance. Alesha & Jim attended the WOW Mainly for Woman Trade Show, again having a presence within our community. Gail & Alesha set up an information booth at the First annual Art Walk, we received donations from the artist that auctioned off hand painted wine barrels it was a successful event. We were invited to attend the WOW Tea and Tanya & Gail gratefully accepted a donation from these amazing woman! Alesha assisted the ATB Watersports fundraiser in Osoyoos this past summer, they donated all the monies raised and their staff donated their time on this well organized event day. We held our 3rd annual Ride to Provide, this event is gaining momentum each year. We have generous corporate sponsors that assist us with the cost of hosting this event. With the addition of the Monster houses and face painting, the Lions and Lionesses helping us to create a great BBQ lunch we have created a great fun filled family day.

Looking forward to 2018, H2H would benefit if we can continue to raise awareness in our communities, perhaps finding a few groups that would assist us in fundraising activities in Osoyoos and Okanagan Falls.
Mark your calendars, we will be in attendance at the WOW Mainly for Woman Trade Show Saturday Feb 17. We will be attending the Art Walk again this year. We will host our 4th Ride to Provide on Sunday June 10, and we are very excited to announce with the assistance and planning of Rochelle Newstead and Fairview Golf Course our 1st hopefully to be annual golf scramble Saturday July 14th.

Our society is committed to continue to assist children and their families as long as there is a need. The board of directors would like to THANK Jim Cade for his service on our board over the past two years we are grateful for the compassion and guidance you provided, we wish you well in your new volunteer activities in Penticton. We also wish Riley Martin well in his move to Victoria and his next venture in the academic world, although he is giving up his position on our board, he will continue to be involved as best he can over the next several years while he pursues his education, we are extremely thrilled he will still be involved!

We welcome this year two new directors that we are extremely excited to have join us, Tracy MacFadden and Russell Work, both are active volunteers within our community we are lucky to have them bring their individual expertise to our board, moving forward we believe we are a diverse group of directors each contributing immensely to our mission.

Lastly we would not be able to assist these families without the generous support of our communities, we receive donations is many ways, through our Website, in memoriam, our fundraising efforts our corporate sponsors and service clubs. We appreciate any and all donations we receive!

Respectfully submitted,
Gail Barriskill
President

The 2018 Ride to Provide, put on by Highway to Healing will be held on Sunday June 10! Registration prices are $25 for the long ride and $10 for the short ride. Registration fees go 100% toward our cause, and include bike maintenance, a bbq meal after the event, refreshments at points along the ride, and chances to win door prizes!

Please visit this page to register!

H2H directors Ernie Dumais, Russell Work, Gail Barriskill, and Tanya Martin (from left to right) were on hand to accept the 2017 Spirit of Oliver Community Group Award from Mayor of Oliver Ron Hovanes (middle) on Friday, April 20th. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the community. Thank you to all for the support and recognition! We are grateful. Photo from Vanessa Broadbent and the Oliver Chronicle.

Some families that we have assisted in the past have graciously recounted their stories for us to use and help show others how we help!

 

Click here to go to the Testimonials page.

At our AGM on Tuesday, we voted to now support children and families from Osoyoos AND Ok Falls traveling for medical care, not just Oliver! This expansion of our service area is only possible because of your continued and generous support! If you live in either Osoyoos or Ok Falls and want to help us reach out to your town, please contact us.

The concept for H2H was first brought up at a Rotary Club of Oliver visioning session in the spring of 2011. Throughout 2012 a committee of Rotary members explored the feasibility of such an organization: by speaking with families who had experienced a need for distant medical care for their child; by gaining knowledge from 2 other similar organizations; and by researching programs and assistance that was already available. The committee identified a need and set about to create a society to provide families with funding and information. The Highway to Healing Support Society was officially registered in November 2012 with a board comprised of five Rotarians. The plan was to eventually include other members of the community on the board.

So with a $300 start-up donation from the Rotary Club of Oliver and a $1,000 donation from a generous Rotarian H2H came into being. The next year was devoted to building the structure of the organization which meant registering as a charitable society, creating policies and procedures, opening bank accounts, sourcing potential funding, creating a website, engaging on social media and on and on and on.

On November 21, 2013 we held our official launch and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Right from the start citizens, service groups and businesses in Oliver saw the merit of H2H and on that first evening we received donations totalling $4,600. And now in 2017 we continue to marvel at the generosity of this community.

This new charity in Oliver, B.C. received registration by the Canada Revenue Agency on August 21, 2013. Since then we have supported 11 families whose children were faced with a variety of medical conditions that required travel away for medical care – some straight forward for assessment or consultation and others for life threatening conditions. This past year H2H support was made available for two new families and for 3 repeat families.

These families received $300 to $500 for a first trip depending on the length of their stay in Vancouver and support for longer stays up to $2500. We also supply a list of other agencies that may be available to help families that find themselves in this situation such as: the B.C. Families Residence Program that provides up to 30 days funding for accommodation and other agencies have helped with transportation needs.

Highway to Healing relies on donations from service organizations, corporate and individual donors. New this year were generous donations from C.C. Jentsch Cellars, Fairview Cellars, and the Kiwanis Club of Oliver. This support from the community has been tremendous and very much appreciated by the families that we support.

This year we held our second annual “Ride to Provide” bike ride cosponsored by Double O Bikes. We appreciated help from the Lions/Lioness Clubs with the barbeque that followed the ride. Also, many thanks go to the volunteers and the Oliver businesses that make this event possible.

Planning has started for the 2017 “Ride to Provide” to be held on Sunday, June 11. It is a fun event, so mark it on your calendars.

The “100 Women Who Care” organization chose Highway to Healing to receive funding from the members at their first meeting. Each of the women who attended donated $100 to our cause. This unique way to support charitable organizations is appreciated.

Riley Martin’s 2.1 km swim across Okanagan Lake was another third-party event where the funds were directed to H2H. The pledges for his great effort raised over $5000 thanks to Riley’s successful swim across the lake.

Community awareness is an important part of the work of the H2H Board of Directors. We want to be certain that all the families who need to travel for medical care know about the assistance that H2H provides. On our website, there is a simple application for families to complete if they are seeking help from H2H. We also want any potential donors to know how to contact us. We have a continuous ad on Oliver Daily News and we have phone, email and postal contact numbers. The Community Foundation of the South Okanagan Similkameen (CFSOS) Knowledge Centre is another good website for information about the Highway to Healing Support Society. We have also made presentations to various clubs and groups in the Oliver area to increase community awareness and to reach out to families.

The new provincial Society’s Act has been introduced to non-profit societies in B.C. The Highway to Healing Support Society board will have to transition to the new legislation by November 2018. All of our bylaws need to be in an electronic format. This should not be an onerous task since we are a relatively new society and our correspondence with the registrar’s office has been through electronic means, however, we will take this opportunity to make minor changes to our bylaws. One change will be to expand our service area. To that end we are considering expansion to include the Town of Osoyoos, Area A of the RDOS, and the O.K. Falls area. Details for these changes in boundaries are being discussed with individuals in those areas.

This report is a collaboration with Joan McCaughey and me. Joan McCaughey was elected president at the 2015 AGM, but moved to the Comox Valley during the past year. We have missed her dearly. Since she was one of the original Rotary members to develop the H2H organization, we owe her a big debt of gratitude for all her hard work in getting H2H where it is now.

I would like to acknowledge the other board members and thank them for a job well done:

Tanya Martin, treasurer; Gail Barriskill, secretary; Riley Martin, director; Cindy Gosling, director; and Jim Cade, director. This Board worked conscientiously for the benefit of the families who we support.

The support received by Highway to Healing is an excellent example of how much the community cares about children and families.

Ernie Dumais

At our 2016 AGM on February 28, 2017 we voted in our new board of directors, which reflects the departure of long-time director, president, and founder Joan McCaughey.

Our new board of directors, from left to right: Tanya Martin (treasurer), Jim Cade, Riley Martin, Gail Barriskill (President), Alesha Grimard, Cindy Gosling (Secretary), Ernie Dumais (Vice President). Gail Barriskill steps in as our new President to pick up where Joan left off, and Alesha Grimard is our newest board member who filled the vacant seat!

The directors of Highway to Healing want to give a heartfelt thank you to all the participants, pledgers, volunteers, corporate sponsors, and local businesses that helped make our 2nd Ride to Provide a reality!

Oliver Daily News contributed $200 to our cause today! Thanks to Jack Bennest for the continued support! What a wonderful and generous community we live in. He is pictured here donating the cheque to H2H directors Gail Barriskill, Joan McCaughey, and Ernie Dumais.