Behind Trillium Health Partners Foundation’s $1 billion Built for Us campaign are three leaders with one thing in common: for each of them, it’s personal.
Why Trillium Health Partners Foundation leaders support Built for Us
Veni Iozzo, Board Chair: “Love and care”
Veni Iozzo needs only three words to describe what Trillium Health Partners means to her. "Love and care."
For Iozzo, a longtime Mississauga resident, those words aren't a slogan. Her family's story is deeply woven into what is the largest community-based hospital network in Canada. When she talks about what it has meant to them, the feeling arrives before the words.
"I get emotional," she says. "It's just an emotional moment to know that the community will be so well cared for."
That moment is closer within reach.
Iozzo, Board Chair at Trillium Health Partners Foundation, is one of the leaders championing Built for Us, the largest fundraising campaign in Trillium Health Partners Foundation's history.
What is the Built for Us campaign?
The historic campaign’s $1 billion goal will help build: The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, the largest hospital in Canada, and the Shah Family Hospital for Women and Children, the first in Ontario dedicated to women and children. It will also support the redevelopment of what will be The Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre.
It is a bold plan for the fastest-growing region in the province, and one of the fastest–growing in the country.
What excites Iozzo most isn't the scale of the new buildings.
"What we're building here is not just about the hospital," she says. "It's about the entire ecosystem around health care."
She hopes the campaign meets every one of its goals. But the message she most wants heard is one of gratitude: to the leadership team, the donors, and the doctors, nurses and staff, "for everything that they do each and every day."
Jumoke Fagbemi, Board Member: “Every little bit counts”
Jumoke Fagbemi's first reaction to the Built for Us vision was simple: this is big.
"I thought it was a very ambitious vision, but it was exciting," says Fagbemi, Board Member at Trillium Health Partners Foundation. "It was something I wanted to rally around because it was something I believed in."
Fagbemi, Senior Vice President of People at Maple Leaf Foods, works in the heart of the hospital's catchment area. The company is headquartered in Mississauga, and many of its employees live in the communities Trillium Health Partners serves.
"It makes me feel proud to be a part of it and supporting the greater community," she says.
Ask her why someone should give, and she doesn’t hesitate. "This is money that is going to help change lives, change our community, and help build a stronger Mississauga," she says. "It's a no-brainer. This is an easy one."
And no gift, she stresses, is too small to matter. "Little drops of water make a mighty ocean. Whether it's $5, $10 or $100,000, every little bit counts."
Caroline Riseboro, President & CEO: “It goes way beyond the professional”
Few people understand what Trillium Health Partners means across a lifetime better than Caroline Riseboro.
The President and CEO of Trillium Health Partners Foundation was born at the hospital. She had her son there. Her whole family has received care there. , and so has she.
"Being part of this campaign goes way beyond the professional into the personal," says Riseboro. "I couldn't be more honoured to be part of something historic."
Leading the largest campaign in the Foundation's history leaves her both proud and humbled, she says, by the people "so dedicated, not just to patient care, but to transforming the way health care is delivered for our region, our province and our country.”
The impact, Riseboro says, "will be immeasurable": millions of people receiving life-transforming care, from their first breath through every stage of life, close to home.
How will Built for Us change health care in Mississauga?
For all three leaders, that’s what Built for Us comes down to. Not the size of the buildings, but the certainty that when someone in this community needs care, it will be here — better, faster and close to home.
