Hero Fund Blog

On Friday, March 16^th, Greg Anthony was in our nation’s capital to participate in a ceremony marking Turkey’s Martyr’s Memorial Day and to accept a $10,000 donation from the Peace and Social Justice Foundation. On the flight back to Toronto, he reflects on the occasion.

It’s nearly springtime in Ottawa: the ice has melted on the canal, the buds are preparing to blossom in Major’s Hill Park and crowds of people are beginning to once again venture out for a stroll through the Market. At this time of the year, our thoughts here at Canadian Hero Fund turn to all the outstanding things we have envisioned for the coming months—new relationships to forge, new horizons to explore. These values came together wonderfully during my most recent trip to our capital city.

I flew to Ottawa on Friday morning to attend a ceremony commemorating Martyrs’ Memorial Day in Turkey, which marks the 1915 Battle of March 18^th in the Dardanelles Campaign and generally commemorates all the Turkish men and women who lost their lives in service to their nation. The event was held at the brand new River Building at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. The day’s significance was made particularly poignant after it was announced that a Turkish helicopter had crashed in Kabul only hours earlier, killing 12 Turkish soldiers and two Afghan civilians. We stood for a moment of silence.

After speeches from university officials and the Turkish Ambassador to Canada, Hikmet Çetin took the stage to give a presentation about the future of Afghanistan. Çetin is one of Turkey’s most accomplished politicians, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister, Speaker of the Turkish Grand Natinal Assembly and, most recently, as NATO’s Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan.  It was incredible to listen and learn from someone with such extraordinary knowledge and insight about one of the most pressing matters of our time. It reminded me of the reason I first joined Hero Fund and why I continue to feel so passionately about education.

Following the presentation, Mrs. Sema Donna Kenan, President of the Peace and Social Justice Foundation, a group founded by Turkish Canadians, took the stage. She gave a beautiful speech and I was called forward to accept, on behalf of Canadian Hero Fund, a generous donation of $10,000 that will go specifically towards the education of the children of Canadian soldiers who lost their lives during active duty in Afghanistan. I had a chance to meet a few of the members of the Foundation and I can say with certainly that I hope this is the beginning of a close relationship between our organizations.

At the reception I had the pleasure of speaking at length with Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson and Lieutenant-General Stuart Beare. It’s immediately clear from the moment you first meet these men that they represent the best that Canada has to offer and it was honour to hear how much they appreciate the work we do here at Hero Fund.

The next day, as I sat in the airport awaiting my flight back to Toronto, I thought about how the events of yesterday reflected this time of the year: the remembrance of the past, of the dark moments we have all experienced; the present, a time of transition and new beginnings; and finally, to a vision of the future, a time of renewed hope and limitless potential. I hope you’ll join me and the rest of the Hero Fund team and as we continue to look to the future and strive to make a difference in the lives of Canadians.

A special thank you to everyone who made my trip to Ottawa such an extraordinary experience—I am truly grateful.

Hi friends,

I’d like to take a moment to introduce one of our long time friends and supporters, Rosa Park. It happens to be her birthday today. It is also a few weeks since her brother came home from his second tour in Afghanistan.

I first met Rosa at a marketing conference in Toronto where she was covering the event for the Globe and Mail. (Rosa is a freelance photographer and runs a very cool video production house called White Lioness Media) I was there looking for new marketing ideas for Hero Fund and somehow we got talking about the charity and what it is we do. That’s when I learned that Rosa’s brother was serving in the Canadian Forces and had already been to Afghanistan.

Rosa has supported Hero Fund for years, and as someone who brings people’s stories to life on camera, Rosa offered to sit in on our annual retreat this past February and see if she could help us tell our story. There are a lot of people who donate their time and energy to this cause, starting with our volunteer executive team who are often spread out across the country. This is the first of three videos Rosa shot at our retreat - a behind-the-scenes look at some of the volunteers who work day in and day out at Hero Fund.

Thanks (and Happy Birthday!) to the wonderfully talented Rosa Park. We’re grateful for people like you and your brother, who give selflessly to causes they believe in.

Now a bit about the team…

- Michael

This past summer we were lucky to have had a truly unique fundraiser held in support of Hero Fund. Colin Townson and Melissa Rudderham got married in Belgium, and in lieu of wedding presents they asked their guests to make donations to us. In total, we received $4,325 from the wedding – a hugely impressive figure for an individual fundraiser.

Check out Melissa’s description of the big day and her explanation of why she and Colin chose Hero Fund:

The wedding took place in the small town of Hargimont in the Belgian province of Luxembourg. It was held on 27 August at the beautiful Château Jemeppe which itself dates back to the 13th century. We had about 75 guests from several different countries (Netherlands, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, US, etc.). Guests included several former and serving members of the CF (e.g. my brother, Chris, who recently returned from Afghanistan and Colin’s uncle Cal who is a retired Air Force LCol, amongst others), DFAIT, and CIDA. Both Colin and I served in Afghanistan ourselves, him for the Government of Canada (2007-2009) and myself with the UN (2007-2010). Between 1999-2007 I was an infantry reservist with the Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry Highlanders in Cornwall Ontario. So for many reasons this cause is close to our hearts.

Thanks, Colin and Melissa! And congratulations from all of us.

Chris Barker was in Kanata on Tuesday February 13th to accept a $10,000 donation from Rockwell Collins on behalf of the Canadian Hero Fund. Below is a reflection he wrote shortly after:

I’m heading home from Ottawa this afternoon, where I went to accept a generous donation from aviation and communications company Rockwell Collins—in the amount of $10,000. They’re expanding their facility in Kanata, and to help celebrate this big day they’ve made a big contribution toward the educational goals of our service members for their children. As I arrived at Rockwell Collins’ building,  representatives from the Air Cadet League, also receiving a donation today, were just walking in.

The Chief of Staff of the Land Reserve, Brigadier-General GJP O’Brien, co-accepted the award with me on behalf of the Canadian Hero Fund. I met the General before the ceremony along with Major MacPherson, a 30-year veteran of the army who served in Bosnia and has a young daughter. The General has had some really interesting experiences in the Army, most recently leading the Coalition effort to reform the Afghan National Police.

I was struck by how much development work, or institution building, the Coalition forces do in Afghanistan. This is not your typical image of army work. The General spearheaded the effort to reform the police, and in so doing needed to study features of police forces elsewhere, to see what would fit best with the local reality in Afghanistan. One of the key elements in building a functional police force was reforming how money flows from the federal government in Kabul to the pockets of police members.  To that end, the General and his team set up something of a national banking system and gave every member of the police an ID card, so they could get paid without middlemen skimming some (or all) off the top!

General O’Brien is also involved in his Regiment’s charitable fund and is a trustee of the Regiment’s museum.

It was great to speak to BGen O’Brien and Major MacPherson, and hear how much they appreciate the work we are doing to help the families of fallen soldiers. We certainly appreciate their service to Canada. As General O’Brien said, everyone who puts on a uniform is a hero. We definitely hope to see more of these two fine soldiers.

Hero Fund’s Executive Director Michael Ball recently took some time to answer a few questions about how it all got started and where things might be headed in future for our charity.

1) Where did the ‘idea’ for Hero Fund first originate?

 One of the main things was the impact of seeing very young soldiers going to Afghanistan and leaving families behind and sometimes not making it back.  It affected us here at home, and we felt the urge to go out and do something to support them.

2) What moment or event stands out most distinctly to you from the last couple years of Hero Fund?

Interacting with the families of the fallen has been the most humbling experience for all of us at Hero Fund. Those interactions have really reinforced our reasons for doing this. A couple that really stand out are two fundraisers for Hero Fund that were held by family and close friends of fallen soldiers. In Peterborough in early 2010 there was an amateur kickboxing event called Fight 4 Troops – a 14 year old nephew of a fallen soldier put it on, it was his idea from scratch. In Vancouver a cross fit competition [competitive workouts] at the gym of a former cross fit trainer who had been killed in Afghanistan was held to support us.  His friends arranged it in his honour, his parents were there. Those really stood out.

3) What is your medium- and long-term vision for Hero Fund?

In the medium term we would like to continue to grow the organization to become a sustainable vessel for grassroots engagement, fundraising and awareness. That means branching out through more student chapters, more events across the country and more third-party events, more people finding Hero Fund and raising money in their own ways. We want Hero Fund to be self-sustaining and raise scholarship funds. The long-term vision is to be a true civilian grassroots outlet of support for military families, and especially to be there down the road with our scholarship program when kids of the fallen are of age to go to university.

4) How can folks reading this at home take steps immediately to support Hero Fund?

A great step is doing your own fundraiser because it is engaging, and families of the forces have told us that that the show of support means a lot to them. A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of doing their own event, but we have had fundraisers that have raised anything from $50 to $500. Folks considering putting an event on should just remember that for most military families, the gesture of support is a lot more important than putting on a huge event or raising a large sum of money.