Kim Duffy with her husband Terry (and dog Abba) at their Toronto home on May 26, 2016.Glenn Lowson/The Globe and Mail
The donor: Kim Duffy
The gift: Creating the WaterStone Foundation
The reason: To help people with eating disorders
When Kim Duffy's 15-year-old daughter reached out for help for an eating disorder, Ms. Duffy scrambled to find a treatment program.
She eventually got her into care at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, but when her daughter had a relapse a couple of years later, she was too old to be admitted to Sick Kids again. With few options available, the Duffys had to turn to an expensive private clinic in the United States.
"I was not going to sit and watch my daughter die in front of me because there was nothing available," recalled Ms. Duffy, who spent years in the health insurance industry in the United States and Britain before returning home to Toronto in 2002.
Her daughter is doing much better and recently graduated from university. But the experience prompted Ms. Duffy and her husband, Terry, to start the private WaterStone Clinic in 2013, along with a foundation to help people who can't afford private treatment. They sold the clinic two years later and have since focused on the foundation, which has raised $500,000 so far and has helped six families find treatment.
"We can't sit back and wait and hope," Ms. Duffy said. "If we can help in any way, we will."
pwaldie@globeandmail.com
Paul Waldie