Tatyana Parfenyuk:
Federated Health Charities is a coalition of provincially-based charities in Ontario, dedicated to raising funds for its members within the Ontario public service.

Sarah Wood:
My background is in health not-for-profit, and I can attest first hand to just how much need there is, and how many people really rely on these services, and the incredible work that they do.

Tatyana Parfenyuk:
No one I think, can say that this is not my problem. It’s always somebody, the girl next door, your friend, whose life may be affected by one of these diseases.

Claudia H:
Having the diagnosis is like a bomb explodes in your life. Everything falls apart.

Kristine L:
I think I went home and cried for days, and I was more worried about my family than me.

Oria J:
I felt guilty because of how I saw it impacted my parents. I saw how stressed and anxious they were, and I also saw them really cry for the very first time.

Shelby H:
My high school experience, I think, I look on it very differently than some of my friends who are healthy throughout the whole thing. I missed out on, you know, some proms, I wasn’t able to go, I had some surgeries, and so that was my experience, a lot of missed moments.

Chris H:
I definitely had limitations in what I could do in terms of sports and so on. There just wasn’t the type of medications available to keep your asthma under control.

Annie B:
I take about eighty pills and medications a day. I spend eight hours doing, like, active treatments. I’ve spent about eleven months in hospital over the last year and a half.

Bonnie B:
I know it’s going to get worse, because it’s something that doesn’t go away. Not looking forward to not recognising my husband or my children.

Shira W:
I live on a four-and-a-half-hour day, attending care budget provided to me by the ministry. So anything extra falls to my parents, or other agencies or volunteers.

Anna Marie F:
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know anybody who had a diagnosis of arthritis, I believe that, you know, with a name like the Arthritis Society, they had a good chance of knowing something that could help me out.

Bailey B:
Heart and Stroke gave me an outlet to share my story, to make the experiences that I went through as a child, more positive.

Gerry C:
Without the help of Osteoporosis Canada, I believe I would have lived a more constricted life. I’d be afraid to go out, I’d be afraid to take long walks.

Clayo L:
I really don’t know where I would have turned, to be honest. I mean, it really is the one community-based organisation that really focuses on psychosis at a community level. And sometimes that’s what you’re really looking for; you just want to be able to connect with someone, you want to be able to realise, oh, it’s not just me that’s going through this.

Lisa H:
It’s almost like a second family. They know everything about me, they’ve been there through my cancer journey, they’ve been there through dialysis.

George A:
Sarah was the first person that we dealt with, coming out of the diagnosis. When we go to the clinic at Sunnybrook Hospital, she’s always there to make things enjoyable in a sort of non-enjoyable world.

Ian M:
There’s a lot of medical coverage that we get through OHIP, but there’s also a lot of other things that we need. There’s education programs and there’s other things, just to make us feel, you know, normal, like, young kids with bleeding disorders, if they can go to camp and do things that they probably wouldn’t be able to do without their parents present.

Nouma H:
Financial difficulty among people with disabilities are way more than others, because the employment rate is almost half, and expenses are high.

Muluba H:
This work is needed. We have so many people, and it is going straight to the people that need it. I’m one example. If you saw me five years ago, I was not somebody that was this confident, that was able to speak. I have benefitted fully from their donations.

And please give what you can, and I’m so thankful.

Oria J:
You can change a life with a very small amount of money.

Gerry C:
And you don’t realise it, but you’re helping people in your own family. You may even be helping yourself someday.

Annie B:
I know that my life is longer and fuller and happier because of the money that has been given to CF Canada, and it means the world to me, it really does.

Raquel G:
Thank you for your donations, because I get to go swimming and gymnastics and baseball.

Shelby H:
Thank you for helping me live the quality of life that I do today.

Lance G:
I just want to say thank you. Your precious gifts have saved countless lives. It’s probably the most selfless thing anybody could ever do.