Rotary Club of Brantford Sunrise will be collecting donations of items for its annual online auction from now until Tuesday, March 31, 2026.
Susan Brown, the club’s president, said the online auction was first started in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was just one of the many ways they had to pivot to help raise funds for local organizations.
“We thought, ‘Okay, what are we going to do while this pandemic is on? How can we have fundraisers because nobody can get together?’ So we scrambled, and we came up with a bunch of ideas and the online auction was one of them,” she recalled. “It was great because we could do it online, we didn’t have to be face-to-face and we could manage it without contact. We decided as a group, to commit the funds to pediatrics at the Brantford General Hospital, and as much as it was a sort of COVID fundraiser, it stuck!”
Now going into its sixth year, the auction has helped the club raise and donate $211,151.28 to the Brantford General Hospital’s pediatric unit to support services and equipment needs, including the redevelopment and expansion of the Pediatric Acute Response Service (PARS) clinic.
“The hospital was trying to expand and open the PARS Clinic, which was designed to move pediatric patients with medical conditions that required rapid treatment, out the Emergency Room and into a child-friendly environment,” said Brown. “It wasn’t finished when we started this auction. They were still about two years away from opening and they were still looking for funding, so we were able to help with, I think, about 20 per cent of what they needed to put it over the line to get it opened, and we were super honoured that they dedicated the waiting room in the clinic to Rotary Sunrise.”
Kari Wilson, Executive Director for the Brant Community Healthcare System Foundation, said that around 2017, the hospital’s pediatrics program had started to expand after new pediatricians joined the Brant Community Healthcare System.
She explained that with the added staff, the hospital was able to introduce new services, including PARS, but they were operating out of a small, outdated space using borrowed equipment. As the need for the clinic and its services continued to grow, something more needed to be done.
“We saw that there was a pressure for these programs to have a dedicated space, but the hospital didn’t have the resources to be able to do that clinic, and they came to the foundation,” said Wilson. “…So we took it out to our donor community, and the Rotary Club of Brantford Sunrise agreed to take this up as a project, as well as several other donors. We were able to raise the funds necessary, which was close to $800,000 in total, through the combined efforts of all of those groups to renovate and outfit the space to develop the Pediatric Acute Referral Service and Bilirubin Clinics.”
While the clinic was officially opened in 2023, the needs for patient equipment was, and still is present. The Rotary Club, as well as other donors, have continued to contribute funds to the pediatrics unit.
Brown went on to say that she and the rest of the club are hoping that the proceeds from this year’s auction will be able to purchase a BabyLeo neonatal incubator for the unit.
“Hopefully we’ll get enough money to buy one or more BabyLeos, which are these incubator warmers that are so important for premature newborns,” she said. “They monitor the temperature, and they keep statistics on how the baby’s doing; they’re very big, high tech machines, and they’re worth about $56,000 each, so that’s where the proceeds will be going.”
While the online bidding will run from Saturday, April 18 at 8 a.m. to Sunday, April 26 at 8 p.m., the Rotary Club is currently collecting donations of items for the auction.
Local businesses and individuals can donate anything from electronics to services, game tickets, restaurant gift cards, jewellery, decor, household items or more.
“We already have dinners out at local restaurants, we have craft brewery vouchers, we have tickets to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Raptors and the Brantford Bulldogs,” said Brown. “We have flights on a vintage airplane at Brant Aero, and we even have a one week stay at a cottage in New Brunswick. Strodes always donates something, and this year they’ve donated a charcoal grill and smoker, but we also get a lot of household items too, so anything works, really.”
While vintage collectible type items are welcome, organizers ask that personal or household items be in new condition.
Brown said that between donations and sponsorship opportunities, the auction is not only a great way to give back to a good cause but to promote a business as well.
“It’s great for businesses that want to maybe promote what they do or if they’ve just opened, it’s a great way to get your name out there too,” she said. “It’s really a win-win.”
For those who are interested in donating something to to auction, they should email rotarysunriseauction@gmail.com
“We do have a very busy NICU here at the BCHS, and of course, with the growth of the community, we’re seeing more babies being born, and we see more care that needs to be delivered, so we’re really, really grateful to the community, and particularly to the Rotary Club for doing this,” said Wilson. “This auction is a tremendous amount of work for these volunteers and it seems so menial to just say ‘thank you’ to them. I know the amount of work that they’re putting into this, and it’s out of the goodness of their hearts they’re dedicating so much of their time to raising these funds. We’re so exceptionally grateful, and the whole community is grateful, because this is patient equipment that we all could end up benefiting from at some point in time. If it’s not for your own little ones, it could be for your grandchild, or nieces and nephews, and we all want to have a hospital that’s well outfitted for them.”
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.
