Posted on Jan 21, 2018
Rotary Club of Guelph South was proud to welcome Linda Craig as a new member.  Her sponsor Celia Clark and President Bruno Marziano oversaw her formal induction.
Linda has recently retired, and the testimonial posted by Guelph General Hospital Foundation on her retirement pretty much says it all!

Today’s #MondayMotivation is a story about community.

Linda Craig, Senior Development Officer, Annual Giving at the Foundation of Guelph General Hospital has been helping to build community for fifteen and a half years.  As Linda prepares for her retirement, she has many mixed feelings. She’s always longed for an opportunity to “free-fall”, but she will deeply miss the structure of her work days and the daily interactions with people at the Hospital and the Foundation staff, volunteers and donors.  Her daily interactions were abundant in number and in quality. She has always believed in the strength of teams and has inspired and empowered others in creating and growing successful fundraising events. Black Tie Bingo has raised $2 million with her leadership and Tour de Guelph quickly grew from a $30,000 event to an almost $100,000 event in just four short years.

Linda reflects most dearly on Tour de Guelph because she was a part of its transformation from an idea that was presented by a couple passionate community members and into a large scale cycling event that now brings together close to 100 volunteers, over 700 riders, and many local businesses as sponsors.  “Tour de Guelph embraces everything we value – community partnerships, families, health, and raising funds and building support for our Hospital” said Linda.  And that is what makes events like these so special, that this coming together of community has been for the benefit of everyone in our community.  “I’m very proud to have worked here for so many years and fundraise for an easy cause – easy because it reaches everyone in our community from life to death.”

Peter Block noted in his book Community: The Structure of Belonging “What makes community building so complex is that it occurs in an infinite number of small steps, sometimes in quiet moments that we notice out of the corner of our eye. It calls for us to treat as important many things that we thought were incidental.”

We can’t think of a more fitting summary of Linda’s career at the Foundation, for she has taken infinite steps, many of them quietly – never wanting to attract much attention towards herself, and she has treated every fundraising initiative and every relationship with utmost importance.  Patient care is better at Guelph General Hospital because of community support and we are so thankful for Linda and the community support that she has demonstrated herself and inspired in others.

We're proud to welcome Linda to our committed group of volunteers, to help her continue her commitment to service.