Jean Peacock started to volunteer at Eagle Ridge Hospital (ERH) right after it opened in 1984.
The Port Moody mother of three daughters loved to show school kids around the labs, introducing them to microscopes and surgical equipment as well as to staff.
“They came away thinking it was a fun place to go rather than a scary place,” her husband, Jim Peacock, said.
Over the years, Jean Peacock was in and out of medical institutions herself after her heart was damaged by chemotherapy and radiation — treatments she received after a breast cancer diagnosis in 1985; macular degeneration also affected her eyes later on, Jim Peacock told The Tri-City News.
Jean Peacock died last September at Eagle Ridge, just four days shy of her 89th birthday and about three years after she and her husband had made their first financial contribution to ERH.
Then, they wrote a cheque for $6,500 to the ERH Foundation to mark their 65th wedding anniversary and it was the first donation made toward its upcoming capital campaign for the hospital expansion, said Charlene Giovannetti-King, the foundation’s executive director.
On Wednesday, June 12, friends and family who gave to the Jean Peacock Memorial Fund, which was set up shortly after her death, saw their money reinvested into that same capital fund.
Their $100,000 gift was announced at the foundation’s annual donor appreciation dinner in honour of Jean Peacock’s cardiologist, Dr. Benjamin Leung; in recognition of the sizeable amount, two cardiology monitoring rooms now under development at the hospital will bear Jean Peacock’s name.
“We were pleased that we were able to do it,” said Jim Peacock, a retired public relations pro who also provided in-kind marketing and publicity services to the foundation over the years. “We lived in Port Moody and it’s been the right thing to do.”
Giovannetti-King said the foundation’s $5-million drive is now 65% funded and, to date, more than 12 spaces have been named through leadership donations such as the Peacocks'.
“However, we are far from finished,” she said in an email to The Tri-City News. “We still have a long way to go and although construction has started on the first of many phases to expand Eagle Ridge Hospital, we are inviting you, our community, to join us on the journey.”
• Visit erhf.ca to make an online donation to the capital campaign.
