Sick Kids has always believed in fighting for the health and well-being of children as one of the most powerful ways to improve society.
Their vision is simple: Healthier Children. A Better World.™
The SickKids legacy began way back in the spring of 1875, when a group of Toronto women led by Elizabeth McMaster rented an 11-room house in downtown Toronto for $320 a year, set up six iron cots and declared open a hospital "for the admission and treatment of all sick children." On April 3, Maggie, a scalding victim, became SickKids' very first patient.
All along the way, Sick Kids has answered the medical needs of children throughout the changing times; pioneering milk pasteurization in 1908 30 years before it became mandatory and providing care during the 1937 polio epidemic.
In September of 2013, SickKids opened the Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning. Towering 21 storeys above ground level at Bay and Elm streets, just a few steps from the Hospital, the Gilgan Centre is a hub where researchers and learners congregate and share ideas to transform the current state of child health care. The world-class facility houses over 2,000 SickKids scientists and their staff and currently has 210 labs up and running. Before the Gilgan Centre opened, SickKids research staff were scattered across six buildings. Now, united in what is believed to be the largest child health research tower in the world, the Gilgan Centre and its large, multi-level open spaces has become a catalyst for sparking new interactions between researchers across different fields of study.
But they knew that they needed to expand their reach, to extend their excellent standards of care to more children around the world and enrich the compassionate care that they believe fosters the lifelong well being of children and their families. In October 2017, the campaign to Build a New SickKids was launched to achieve this aim. The primary focus of this campaign is a near-total rebuilding of the aging hospital so that they are no longer limited by outdated spaces, equipment, and models of care. The newly designed towers will provide state-of-the-art inpatient and outpatient facilities that minimize infection risks, accommodate diagnostic equipment that comes to the bedside, and create an environment that allows families to be actively involved in their child’s treatment and recovery. SickKids will raise a building as extraordinary as the care that they deliver inside its walls.
Riverside is proud to be a small part of SickKids’ inspiring campaign and their journey to Build a New SickKids that supports the health and well being of children. As one of our very first community partners, Riverside has used employee product sales to raise money to donate to SickKids for the past 5 years. We’ve just hit an amazing $50,000 in cumulative giving, and have earned a coveted plaque on their donor wall this year – we’re so proud!
“Congratulations Riverside on achieving this incredible milestone in your giving! We are profoundly grateful for your support!”
-Melissa Jones, Corporate Partnerships at the SickKids Foundation
We at Riverside are humbled and so very proud of our ability to contribute to such an inspiring cause. Please consider this amazing organization for your own community giving.