The Toronto Star article on charities by Kevin Donovan
(Excerpt from The Toronto Star, Sunday June 3, 2007
Article by Kevin Donovan.....Great charities can be found, but it takes legwork...)
The full article can be found below or on the Star website at http://www.thestar.com/article/220953
The major investigative piece in Saturday's Star (June 2) can be found at http://www.thestar.com/article/220756
Camp Trillium
This is an innovative camp for children with cancer and their families. Their two campsites in Ontario, plus daycamps around the province, see 3,100 campers annually. About 80 per cent of Trillium's $3 million expenditure is spent directly on campers, with the remainder recorded as administration and fundraising.
The theme is this: Children with cancer, and their families, need a break – if only for a week. The camps provide a typical summer camp experience but parents, siblings come along with the camper. They have 100 paid summer staff and 300 volunteers – many counselors are cancer survivors who attended the camp.
"Kids with cancer are still children," says Trillium development director Fiona Fisher. "They arrive at camp and they can be the first one up the climbing wall, they get to sing and play." The camps are funded by various community groups but among the most notable is an annual zero-cost Toronto-based event called Set Sail for Hope that brings the camp $155,000 each year.
Toronto yacht owners, at their own expense, provide their boats and skipper the journey. Restaurants like Rodney's Oyster House, Fred's Not Here and chefs at the Westin Harbour Castle cook up a fabulous lunch on the Toronto Islands (at their own expense) and then the skippers take their guests on an afternoon cruise. Corporate sponsors pay about $7,000 each (some give additional donations). Arthur Boas, a skipper and volunteer, said they organize the whole event with eight, one-hour meetings. Cheques are written by corporate sponsors directly to Camp Trillium, a camp that Boas said runs on the ultimate shoe string budget. "These guys hammer bent nails back into shape so they don't have to buy new ones."