Hamilton’s Charles and Margaret Juravinski are donating $3.3M towards fighting COVID-19
- Michael Kras
- 07 Apr 2020
Local philanthropists Charles and Margaret Juravinski are donating $3.3 million to Hamilton’s health services towards funding urgent research for COVID-19 and mental health.
The donation represents an advance on the Juravinskis’ existing pledge to donate their estate, worth about $100 million, in a split between Hamilton Health Sciences, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and McMaster University. The full estate pledge represents one of Canada’s largest planned legacy gifts in history.
The urgent, ongoing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic is what inspired the Hamilton philanthropists to make a portion of their estate readily available to the city’s leading healthcare institutions and research centres.
Read a remarkable letter from Charles and Margaret Juravinski, who are giving $3.3-million to accelerate research into COVID-19 and brain health. It’s part of the new Juravinski Research Institute. #JuravinskiLegacy | @HamHealthSci @StJoesHamilton https://t.co/5s6VAYGEjL
— McMaster University (@McMasterU) April 3, 2020
“As a man of 90 and woman of 88, we have seen the world face and overcome many frightening problems, including the ravages of the Great Depression, the threat of global fascism in the Second World War and the scourge of polio, to name just some,” wrote Charles and Margaret Juravinski in a letter to the community.
“We have seen a lot in our lives, and we know by now that there is more than enough ingenuity and goodwill in this world to defeat this pandemic.”
The emergency funding will go towards supporting a number of immediate COVID-19 initiatives, including researching the efficiency of masks and respirators, studying the impact of a pandemic on healthcare services and staff, development of rapid sampling and detection systems, and advancing research capabilities for the current health crisis.
Thanks to the support of the Juravinskis, these invaluable initiatives can be jump-started more rapidly and help fight the health crisis that is currently affecting the community in Hamilton and beyond in countless ways on a daily basis.
“Bringing ingenuity and goodwill together requires resources, and that is why we are making this new gift. Our wish is that it may inspire hope. We hope it will produce results that benefit people immediately. We urge others to find ways to give what they can.”
Lead image courtesy of @stjoeshamilton
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