LEGACY GIVING SINDI AHLUWALIA HAWKINS


A lifetime of giving


Former B.C. cabinet minister and three-time Kelowna- Mission MLA Sindi Ahluwalia Hawkins began her career as a cancer nurse. Long before she walked through the doors of the B.C. Cancer Agency as a patient, she was already fundraising to help build the centre that would provide care to her con- stituents, her community and ultimately, to herself. The centre that now bears her name — BC Cancer Agency Sindi Ahluwalia Hawkins Centre for the Southern Interior — honours her lifelong contributions. She began by launching the Sindi Hawkins and Friends


Golf Tournament in 1996. The hugely successful event not only helped fund the construction of the agency’s centre in the Southern Interior, it also supported North America’s first bone marrow transplant outreach clinic, in Kelowna and lat- er, the new Kelowna Hospice. When Sindi was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2004, she continued to be a champion, an ambassador and a leading light for the B.C. Cancer Foundation. “Sindi devoted herself to serving British Columbians, not only as a public servant and MLA, but also through her many personal efforts and projects,” said B.C.Cancer Foundation president and CEO Douglas Nelson. While she was still in treatment, Sindi helped bring Lance


Armstrong to B.C. to headline the Foundation’s Tour of Courage in 2007, raising nearly $2 million for blood cancer research.


“Sindi had many enduring and exceptional qualities, but what stands out for me the most was her courage, her de- termination and her positive attitude,” says Cynthia Waldek- Peters, the Foundation’s director of development in the Southern Interior and a good friend. “She was an eternal optimist — always positive and full of hope.” She found donors to donate equipment, raised funds for cancer research and for a housing project for families of pa- tients undergoing bone marrow transplants. Through all of her efforts, Sindi helped raise more than $20 million for cancer research and care in B.C. Sadly, on Sept.21, 2010, one week after her 52nd birthday, Sindi suc- cumbed to her leukemia. Today Sindi’s legacy lives on through the Sindi Hawkins and


Friends Education Endowment Fund, created to support public forums in Kelowna featuring leading cancer special- ists from across Canada and North America. Among the many tributes from her friends and colleagues, Douglas Nelson said, “All of us at the B.C.Cancer Foundation will honour and remember Sindi as one of our greatest friends and champions.We will continue her work and her legacy.” For more information about establishing a lasting legacy through a named endowment fund or to contribute to an ex- isting endowment fund at the B.C.Cancer Foundation, please contact Cynthia Waldek-Peters at 250-712-3910 or cwaldekpeters@bccancer.bc.ca.


“All of us at the B.C.Cancer Foundation will honour and remember Sindi as one of our greatest friends and champions.We will continue her work and her legacy.”


B.C. Cancer Foundation president and CEO Douglas Nelson


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3 THE OKANAGAN SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012


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