Laura Tedesco has worked at Foresters, a life insurance provider, for just over seven years. While she has always believed in the company’s mission—to champion the well-being of families—she has now also benefitted from it.
Laura’s second child, Nathan, fussed a lot as a baby. He constantly cried and never quite met his developmental milestones. When Nathan reached his first birthday, he could not eat solid food and had a chronic cough. Throughout the year, his cough developed into pneumonia.
Nathan went through a number of tests, one of which took place at The Hospital for Sick Children. The ‘sweat test’ performed at SickKids revealed Nathan had cystic fibrosis (CF).
CF affects multiple organ systems, including the lungs and the digestive system. Thick mucus in the lungs makes clearing bacteria very difficult and leads to repeated cases of infection and inflammation.
On Thursday morning, Laura told her SickKids story to more than 150 Foresters volunteers, who gathered in the Foresters Conference Centre. These volunteers were there to build 300 bears for the Annual SickKids Radiothon, part of Astral Media’s National Day of Caring for Kids.
It’s the twentieth year that Foresters has partnered with SickKids Foundation as the presenting sponsor of the Radiothon, the most successful in North America. Foresters underwrites the Radiothon program, allowing 100 per cent of funds raised to stay in the community.
Nathan is now two-and-a-half years old and returns regularly to SickKids for clinical visits. As a SickKids parent, Laura feels that she has personally benefitted from the commitment Foresters has made to raising funds for children’s hospitals like SickKids.
She explained to her colleagues the importance of their volunteer work. “Today, you are doing much more than just building bears,” she told them. “You are providing hundreds of sick children with something that will help give them comfort.”
This year’s SickKids Radiothon will broadcast live from the Atrium at The Hospital for Sick Children on April 29, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tune in to Newstalk 1010, boom 97.3 and 999 Virgin Radio to hear a mix of current and past SickKids patients and families recount their compelling stories and connections to the Hospital.