What does Ronald McDonald House BC & Yukon mean to you and your organization?

RMH BC helps families going through the most difficult time of their lives and gives families a sense of normalcy and community. When I visit the house in Vancouver, I see great things happening. It truly helps families, whether it’s the hockey rink in the backyard, the teen room with video games, or first-rate kitchens.

RMH BC helps my local community and strongly aligns with my personal and corporate values. The partnership we’ve created between EMCO Waterworks Kelowna and RMH BC is one of the ways I’ve chosen to give back to my community.

How many years have you been supporting RMH BC & Yukon?

I was previously involved with RMHC in St. John’s, Newfoundland and their expansion in 2015, and have been a big believer in the cause since then.

I took over EMCO Waterworks Kelowna in 2017. Since then, my business and I have had strong partnership with RMH BC.

I run a small business in Kelowna, with six teammates. Our EMCO Waterworks Kelowna team has personally fundraised over $130,000 for RMH BC since 2017 through events like the Construction Cares Hockey and Soccer tournament and the EMCO Waterworks Interior Invitational Tournament.

What motivates you and EMCO Waterworks Kelowna to continue to fundraise for RMH BC & Yukon?

I strongly believe in community and corporate social responsibility. How you do things matters, and with a good portion of the RMH BC families coming from my region (Interior BC), the alignment with RMH BC made sense from a personal and business perspective.

My small team built our EMCO Waterworks Interior Golf Tournament from scratch, which I am very proud of. When we started out in 2019, we had 32 golfers and raised $2,300 for RMH BC. In 2023, we had 108 golfers, 2 volunteers, 6 people from my EMCO team, and raised $41,445. We’re extremely fortunate to have so many friends of EMCO Waterworks Kelowna that share our similar vision of a great day out playing golf, for a great cause.

If you had to share a message to call on the community to support RMH BC & Yukon, what would you say?

I chose to partner with RMH BC because their organization aligns with my personal core values: caring, community, compassion, and results.

In 2023, 59% of the stays at RMH BC (28% Interior, 25% Northern Interior, and 6% Kootenays) were from families close to my home.

EMCO Waterworks Kelowna has gifted 1,043 nights for  RMH BC families since 2017. Having that level of direct correlation, witnessing the transparency in our fundraising, and making that kind of an impact at a local level makes the partnership valuable to me and my business.

Your favourite memory from your past RMH BC fundraiser?

I think for me it’s about the momentum of tangible results with the Emco Waterworks invitational tournament we started. Our annual tournament raised $2,300 (2019), $4,000 (2020), $10,800 (2021), $20,055 (2022), then $41,445 (2023).

In 2023, I was giving a small speech at the end of our event to thank everyone involved and giving a bit of the history of the tournament and why we do it. I think that’s when it really set in what we were building here in Kelowna. It’s surpassed my expectations, and creating something from a grassroots initiative gives it so much more personal value and buy-in.