John Westhaver was just six weeks away from graduating high school when a tragic event in 1994 would completely change his life. As the result of some poor choices, John and three of his friends got into a car accident, leaving him as the sole survivor and with life-threatening burns to 75% of his body. This […]
New records were achieved at the 18th annual Courage To Come Back Awards on May 5th with over 1,500 attendees at the Vancouver Convention Centre and over $1.43 million raised to support Coast Mental Health. Each year, Coast Mental Health hosts this coveted awards gala, an inspirational evening to recognize six truly remarkable British Columbians
A record $1.43 Million raised at the 2016 Courage To Come Back Awards Read More »
COLTYN LIU NAMED COURAGE TO COME BACK AWARD RECIPIENT Look at him now and you’d never believe his story: hit by a steel vendor’s cart in a shopping mall food court as a toddler, slammed aside like a rag doll, suffering traumatic brain injury which left him having to learn to talk, to walk, to
CHRISTY CAMPBELL NAMED COURAGE TO COME BACK AWARD RECIPIENT Christy Campbell, 41, of North Vancouver is the 2016 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Physical Rehabilitation category. Christy had it all: active healthy life; loving partner, rewarding career, happy home, and great friends. Then, in December, 2005, at the age of 31, she
JEMAL DAMTAWE NAMED COURAGE TO COME BACK AWARD RECIPIENT At age 15 in war-torn Ethiopia, he became a child soldier – at the point of a gun. His first escape, stowed away on a cargo ship, left him swimming for his life with other boys, two of whom drowned. In 1986, still a teenager, he
MEREDITH GRAHAM NAMED COURAGE TO COME BACK AWARD RECIPIENT by Gerald Haslam Meredith Graham, 27, of New Westminster, is the 2016 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Social Adversity category. Meredith’s childhood was influenced by her parents’ experiences of poverty, food scarcity, violence, periods of mental illness, and substance use. Meredith – from
TOM TERANISHI NAMED COURAGE TO COME BACK AWARD RECIPIENT by Gerald Haslam Tom was born in 1942 at a wartime internment camp for Japanese-Canadians. He had significant vision issues from birth, which later developed into retinopathy and macular degeneration, undergoing bilateral cataract and corneal transplant surgeries. Today he has about five per cent functional vision
by Gerald Haslam – founding member of Coast Mental Health Foundation, author, past member of The Courage To Come Back Executive Committee My involvement with Courage began on a rainy fall day in 1998. Hugh Mitchell, a stockbroker and friend I’d done business with since the early 80s, reached me by phone. “I’ve found something really fascinating,
Lessons in courage Read More »
Wendy St. Marie, 2015 Courage To Come Back Award Recipient – Speech, Courage Launch, January 6, 2016 I want to tell you how being nominated and going through the process has affected me and to ENCOURAGE others to nominate. I had the very great honour of being the recipient of last year’s Courage To Come Back Award
Nominate someone – reading how my friends feel about me was mind blowing Read More »
by Gerald Haslam – founding member of Coast Mental Health Foundation, author, past member of The Courage To Come Back Executive Committee Jerome Bouvier received the 2011 Courage To Come Back award in the Addiction category because his friend Ted Kuntz wrote a letter. No, that’s not the whole story, not by a long shot, but
Without Ted’s letter, no award for Jerome Bouvier. Read More »