February 26, 2010
Silken’s Blog
By Silken Laumann
A gold medal should go to Jane Roos and the Canadian Athletes Now Fund. Over the past thirteen years this woman and the fund that she named, have raised millions of dollars that go directly to our Olympic athletes. Thirteen members of Canada’s Women’s Gold medal hockey team received grants from this fund to help with their living and training expenses. What most Canadians don’t realize is that most Olympic athletes live like students, from cheque to cheque, struggling to pay both their grocery bill and their housing bill.
Shaw has given two floors of their downtown building to hosting atheltes and their families. What a wonderful avenue to Olympic athletes to meet with their brothers and sisters, family and friends outside the Olympic Village, but in a private space. Sprott Investments gives $100,000 to the CAN fund for each gold medal, so including an initial investment of $240,000 over 1 million dollars has been given to help the next lot of athletes training for the Olympic Games. Impressive.
The vision and will of one woman and her small team of volunteers has brought this fund to a place of being a major factor in helping Canadian athletes win gold. Jane and her Olympian husband Conrad deserve a gold medal in philanthropy for their efforts.
By the way, CAN athletes Now House is a fun and funky place with free daycare, live music and a Wii Fit that my son played on for a solid hour. So much for boring receptions William.
– Silken