{"id":32955,"date":"2023-04-20T17:52:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T21:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32955"},"modified":"2023-04-20T17:52:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T21:52:22","slug":"community-comes-together-for-local-hospital-april-30-for-southlake-run-registration-closes-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/community-comes-together-for-local-hospital-april-30-for-southlake-run-registration-closes-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Community comes together for local hospital April 30 for Southlake Run; registration closes Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Karel Span is getting his last-minute stretches in this week to try to match his 2022 record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of next weekend\u2019s Nature\u2019s Emporium Run for Southlake, which takes place outside the hospital on Sunday, April 30, the 78-year-old resident of King is looking to match or beat the 43 minutes he took to complete last year\u2019s run, the biggest annual fundraiser for Southlake Regional Health Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Run has long been a cause close to Span\u2019s heart and as Captain of the King Curling Club run team, he has helped raise more than $10,000 for the hospital since first stepping out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth my wife and I have received incredible care at Southlake, primarily within the Stronach Regional Cancer Centre, as both of us have been touched by the disease,\u201d he shared via the Southlake Foundation. \u201cThe way physicians, nurses and staff treat patients here is exceptional. Even during the hard times of COVID, they still worked hard to be compassionate and to make people like us feel comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to join participants and teams like Span and the King Curling Club, the last day to register for this year\u2019s run is this Friday, April 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At press time this week, the Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation reports they have nearly 900 total registered participants, significantly more than last year\u2019s outing, and fundraising stood at just over $71,000 and counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really inspired that the community has come together to support this event,\u201d says the Foundation\u2019s Dionne Malcolm. \u201cOverwhelmingly we\u2019re seeing that the people that are stepping up to participate are coming from a place of this true appreciation of care close to home. It\u2019s either been experiences they\u2019ve had, their kids, their spouses, their grandparents. It\u2019s this overwhelming gratitude that people feel that they want to give back. A lot of the stories we\u2019re sharing, Karel was a perfect example. He\u2019s had cancer treatment at Stronach, his wife is currently going through treatment, and they just really wanted to give back to the hospital. Overwhelmingly, it\u2019s the community coming out to support the hospital; we always say we\u2019re here when you need us, but in this instance the community is very much here for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melanie Osmond of the Foundation\u2019s Events Team adds the community will be able to cheer on participants once again on Newmarket\u2019s Davis Drive as the run begins outside the Newmarket Seniors\u2019 Meeting Place, continuing out towards the hospital and under its landmark arch, back to the Meeting Place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will have opening ceremonies at 8 a.m. when we announce our challenge winners to date and then we all head to the starting line, all line up, and we get our runners out first, followed by those who have some time results, followed in continuous order ending with those with strollers or walking with kids and families,\u201d says Osmond. \u201cDown and up Davis Drive, we have entertainment along the way and we will be done and wrapped up by 11 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this Friday may be the last day for participants to register, fundraising is open until May 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf people have friends and family members inspired by what they achieved during the run, it\u2019s not too late to get those pledges in,\u201d says Malcolm. \u201cThis is our largest community fundraising event and what it means to us financially is amazing, but what it means to us in community support and how our hospital feels the support from the community is incredible. We have over 20 hospital teams registered this year, which is an astronomical number, it\u2019s amazing, and it speaks to the fact that our hospital family, physicians, staff and volunteers, feel the support from the community and want to be running alongside them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a really fun day. If you have never had an interaction with Southlake or the Southlake Foundation, it is just a really joyful, wonderful morning to be a part of. We have hospital staff who come out and literally cheer people as they pass the hospital and we just really encourage people to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on this year\u2019s event, visit www.runforsouthlake.ca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karel Span is getting his last-minute stretches in this week to try to match his 2022 record. Ahead of next weekend\u2019s Nature\u2019s Emporium Run for Southlake, which takes place outside the hospital on Sunday, April 30, the 78-year-old resident of King is looking to match or beat the 43 minutes he took to complete last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8zx","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 10:50:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}