Generous donation pushes Fresh Air Fund over the top,

The Fresh Air Fund has received a $250,000 donation, the largest, single donation by a living person in the fund’s recent memory — and possibly ever.

The gift comes from a woman who has happy memories of her childhood days camping with her family and just wanted to make sure other children could enjoy the same fun.

“I just wanted to be able to help more children have that experience. I felt I had to give to the children,” said Yvonne. “They would be so appreciative. How could I let them down?”

Yvonne, who asked that only her first name be published, remembers the first time she went camping when she was just nine years old.

“It was a wonderful time,” she recalls. “We camped near Lake Erie, sat around campfires at night, went swimming. I had so much fun, and I’ve always remembered those days.”

Yvonne’s parents, who had recently immigrated to Canada, weren’t rich. In fact, she says the family was “dirt poor” when they first arrived in Toronto in the mid-1950s.

Yvonne, who is now in her late 60s and lives in Mississauga, was one of countless young children whose lives were changed forever when they experienced the joys of summer camping for the first time.

Each year, some 25,000 underprivileged and specialneeds kids from across the city enjoy the same type of experience as Yvonne’s when they attend a summer camp, thanks to the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund.

Remembering her own camping adventure nearly 60 years ago — and thinking of all the children from families who may not be able to afford to send them to camp — Yvonne decided to donate $250,000 this summer to the Toronto Star Fresh Air Fund.

Her donation also means the Fresh Air Fund has exceeded its goal of $650,000 for 2021, and there’s still a week to go in the annual fundraising campaign. The surplus money — and all additional donations collected in the coming days — will be used in 2022 to help send even more children to camps than has been the case in past years.

“I’m so glad to be able to do this,” says Yvonne. “I keep thinking about how children are so happy when they are running around having fun. At camp, they can have the time of their lives, going fishing and swimming, doing painting and learning from camp counsellors.”

Yvonne also hopes her generous gift will inspire others, especially wealthier individuals in our communities, to also donate to the Fresh Air Fund. “It took me a long time to conclude that I should make this donation as a way to convince others to also donate money for charities for children,” she says.

Jordan Bitove, publisher of the Toronto Star, said he is “honoured that Yvonne made such a generous donation to our Fresh Air Fund. It is a truly inspirational gift. She is a fine example of what makes the Greater Toronto Area so great and of our individual donors who remember going camping when they were kids and what it meant to them and of the profound lasting impact it had on their young lives.

“I hope Yvonne’s donation spurs others in our community to help in whatever way they can to donate to the fund and help send even more youths to camp,” he added. “Every donation today is an investment in our children that will pay huge dividends in the future.”

Since 1901, the Star has raised money through the Fresh Air Fund to send kids from across the city to summer camps.

The Fresh Air Fund is distributing grants to 29 overnight camps and 43 day camps this summer. In most years it provides funds to about 110 camps, but the pandemic forced the closure of many camps this summer or forced them to reduce the number of campers or open later than normal.

Like children who attend camps supported by the Fresh Air Fund, camping was a whole new experience for Yvonne as a child.

She was just two years old when her parents immigrated to Canada from Austria. The family initially lived in an apartment on Wallace Avenue in the west end of Toronto, then bought a small house in the Keele-Eglinton area before moving to a larger home in Mississauga.

Yvonne attended university and later worked as a receptionist at a major company in downtown Toronto. “I was never poor,” she says. She had no siblings. Her parents, especially her mother who was an accountant, invested wisely and “were always there to help me.”

When her mother died last year, Yvonne started to think about how she could help children. She doesn’t have children of her own, but worries about the future of disadvantaged youths across the Greater Toronto Area.

“I could cry when I read about the suffering of so many children these days,” she says. “I felt I had to do something — and I wanted a way to encourage richer people to think about donating more of their money in ways to help children.

“I thought about writing letters but felt that might not have much effect. But then I thought about the Fresh Air Fund which I had read about for years.

“I realized I just couldn’t let this opportunity go by; I just couldn’t.”

Yvonne says she is disturbed when she reads about superrich people who spend their money in ways she considers “ridiculous.” In particular, she cites billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, both of whom spent tens of millions of dollars to soar into space and who are encouraging “space tourism” at costs of up to $26 million for a 10-minute ride.

“It’s mind-boggling what rich people do with their money while poor children suffer,” she says. “But they don’t think that way. It could be such a beautiful world if people would only realize how important is that we all try to help each other as much as possible.

“That’s why I wanted to do my part and donate to the Fresh Air Fund,” Yvonne says.

The Fresh Air Fund is a registered children’s charity. Every dollar donated goes toward sending underprivileged and special-needs children to camp. The Star covers all administrative and labour costs associated with the fund.

Please donate.

You will be creating cherished memories for children that will last a lifetime, just like the memories Yvonne still recalls when thinking back happily to that summer when she was nine years old.

If you have been touched by the Fresh