Brant Community Healthcare System Foundation hosted a unique fundraising event on Saturday, May 23, 2026.
The inaugural Hospital Bed Races had spectators cheering from the side lines as participants, many of whom were dressed in team costumes, took turns racing four retired hospital beds.
Kari Wilson, Executive Director for the Brant Community Healthcare System Foundation, said the event was designed to help raise funds for new patient beds at the Willett Hospital in Paris.
“Thanks to today’s support and the matching contributions of a generous donor in the community, we will be able to purchase 32 beds for the Willett,” she said. “And because some of those beds are actually newer than some of the oldest beds at the Brantford General Hospital, we’ll be able to support the replacement of those beds as well.”
Wilson said that fundraising events, as well as donors, are essential in making sure that Brantford-Brant’s hospitals can function efficiently.
“The Ministry of Health doesn’t fund all of the patient equipment that’s needed in our hospitals, and so that’s where our foundation comes in. We work with our donors to help us purchase patient equipment like hospital beds which are an essential piece of basic equipment,” she said. “Those donor dollars are critical in allowing us to have a strong healthcare system, and will continue to be as we look forward to raising our required local share for a new hospital.”
The executive director went on to say that the event was a huge success and raised over $121,000.
“Now that it’s over, we can share that our goal was to raise $120,000 and we’re really happy to say that as of right now, with some more donations yet to come in, that we’re looking at over $121,000,” said Wilson. “We had lots of sponsors participate. Sleep N’ Comfort in particular was our title sponsor and we’re really grateful to them. On top of that, we also had all sorts of sponsor tables, participants and 18 teams that came out to race our hospital beds, and we just had a really, really great day. Now, there is a matching donor who is contributing $100,000, and news of who they are will be coming out shortly, but we’re really excited about that because that’s going to put us over $221,000, which is amazing.”
She added that while the event had to be moved indoors at the last minute due to the rain, she and her team were pleased with the overall event.
“It was really amazing. We were worried that the rain was going to dampen the spirit of the day, but it really didn’t,” said Wilson. “Not only were there 18 teams, but we had a huge number of individuals who came out to support those teams, and we loved that everyone embraced the costume aspect too; we had dust bunnies, dinosaurs and bed bugs, and it was just so much fun. You know, we have the opportunity through the foundation to have all sorts of events, but I think among the staff this might be one of our favourites, if not the favourite.”
While the Brantford Firefighters may have taken home the “golden bedpan,” team Code Blue Crew took home the title of top fundraisers, bringing in $2,487 for the cause.
As of May 24, 2026, the fundraising total stands at $122,431.31.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
