National Honouring Canada's Lifeline

 

Honouring Canada’s Lifeline (HCL) is an annual, national event recognizing some of the country’s most dedicated people at the heart of Canada’s Lifeline.

Each year, it takes hundreds of thousands of blood donors, stem cell donors, organ and tissue donors, financial donors, employees and volunteers — as well as thousands of community and corporate groups and partners — to save the lives of patients across Canada. Honouring Canada’s Lifeline is our opportunity to recognize the many contributors along that path.

Honouring Canada's Lifeline Live Event

This year, we celebrated virtually with special guest host Heather Badenoch and musical guests Kalsey Kulyk and Donovan Woods. We hope you enjoy this story about the power of connections: from blood and plasma, to stem cells, and organs and tissues.

To learn more about how you can strengthen Canada’s Lifeline by becoming a donor of blood, plasma, stem cells, organs and tissues or how to become a financial donor, community partner or volunteer please read more on blood.ca or call 1 888 2 DONATE.

Trusting that we can all be part of the connection that keeps the story going: together, we are Canada's Lifeline.

Headshot of Heather Badenoch with long brown hair and a purple long sleeve shirt.

Heather Badenoch

Master of Ceremonies

Heather had originally applied to be a living liver donor for a specific child near Ottawa, who had made a public plea for a donor in 2016. Fortunately, that child found a match and had a successful transplant. Heather asked to remain in the screening process for anyone else in need.
Logo of Cheryl's Run in purple with butterflies

Cheryl’s Run

Peer Recruiter

Norma and her sister Colette Bachez learned the importance of donation in the hardest way possible. A niece of theirs, Cheryl Lynn Boyle, needed countless blood transfusions and a bone marrow transplant to treat aplastic anemia, a rare and often fatal condition.
Headshot of Deborah Skaey with medium blonde wavy hair with a white shirt

Deborah Skaey

Peer Recruiter

Deborah Skaey coordinates an annual donor event at her workplace, BC RCMP headquarters. During the last seven years, the event has collected a total of more than 700 units of whole blood.
Image of peer recruiter Parmeet Kahlon standing in front of a lake with trees in the back.

Parmeet Kahlon

Peer Recruiter

While earning a nursing degree from Toronto’s Ryerson University, Parmeet began to raise awareness of the need for donations of blood, plasma, platelets and organs.
Logo of Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency with red and blue colours. Established in 1754

Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency

Partner

Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency (HRFE) continues to increase the support it provides to Canadian Blood Services. Much of the credit goes to current captain Annette Thompson, hired as a firefighter in 2007.
Logo of the Vancouver Police Department with a yellow reef and a red and gold crown at the top.

Vancouver Police Department

Partner

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is a longtime participant in the Partners for Life program, promoting the importance of donating blood through social media and hosting a variety of on-site events.
Circular logo of Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association - Calgary with a red maple leaf in the middle along with a flag

Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association

Partner

“We’ve partnered with Canadian Blood Services for more than a decade and our members are proud to do whatever they can to help,” says Qamar Ahmad, social services director for Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association (AMYA), Calgary Region.
Logo of the York Regional Police with a crown at the top.

York Regional Police

Partner

YRP’s engagement with Canadian Blood Services takes many forms. In 2011, YRP detective Ashley Smith organized a blood donor event in honour of constable Garrett Styles, who died while on duty. It’s since become an annual event.
Logo of Sikh Nation in blue words and Blood donation in red words

Sikh Nation

National Partner

For more than 20 years, Sikh Nation has partnered with Canadian Blood Services in a series of annual donation events in several provinces across the country.
Image of Americo Silva standing up against a wall beside a picture frame wearing a plaid blue shirt

Americo Silva

Volunteer

Americo has enjoyed a storied life. Born in Portugal, he immigrated in 1967, Canada’s centennial year. He settled in Vancouver, where he unexpectedly met someone from his home village — a woman who used to play with his younger sister.
Photo of Razia Seman standing in front of a bench and a tree out a neighbourhood park wearing a hijab

Razia Seman

Volunteer

Razia to begin volunteering for Canadian Blood Services in 2019, initially at recruitment events and then at blood donor clinics.
Headshot image of Hedy Halpern sitting in her chair with grey hair and glasses.

Hedy Halpern

Volunteer

A volunteer all of her life, Hedy Halpern helped Vietnamese refugees settle in and around Montreal in the 1970s. Over the years, she’s also given her time and efforts to numerous youth groups and community theatre companies.
Photo of blood donor and volunteer Stephen Gregg with rectangular glasses and wearing a red Canadian Blood Services vest.

Stephen Gregg

Volunteer

A longtime blood donor who’s completed more than 150 donations, Stephen is also a professional photographer who’s started to think about retirement.
Image of blood donor Quinn Bleakley standing beside pink, teal, black, white, and gold balloons

Quinn Bleakley

Donor

When Quinn learned that her father needed a kidney transplant, she immediately offered to donate one of hers.
Blood donor Cori-Jo Heggie holding her grandson outside a home wearing black shirt with black glasses and blonde brunette hair

Cori-Jo Heggie

Blood Donor

A high school teacher born and raised in Lethbridge, Alta., Cori-Jo first donated blood as a teenager. She’s completed 95 more donations since then and regularly encourages others, particularly first-timers, to join her.
Photo of Robert Sanford standing in front of a chimney in his home

Robert Sanford

Blood Donor

Robert has completed a total of 805 donations of whole blood, plasma and platelets, and he is also registered to donate stem cells.
Image of medical laboratory technologist Michelle Dunn holding a blood bag in the lab

Michelle Dunn

Blood Donor

“Every time I’m asked for a unit of whole blood, I’m reminded of the importance of blood donation,” says Michelle Dunn, a medical laboratory technologist at Chilliwack Hospital.
Image of blood donor Palmo Carpino sitting in front of a shelf wearing glasses and a striped sweater

Palmo Carpino

Plasma Donor

Palmo began donating whole blood in 1988. A friend who was a regular donor invited him to come along for one of her appointments.
Image of Melissa Deleary with a blue shirt sitting.

Melissa Deleary

Stem Cell Donor

Melissa Deleary, a health policy analyst with the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, is both Dene and Anishinaabe.
Photo of Susan Nguyen standing in front a desk in a bedroom with shelves

Susan Nguyen

Stem Cell Donor

Susan’s youngest brother, Bille Nguyen, had been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive blood cancer several months earlier. Doctors said his only hope was a stem cell transplant. Susan and her two sisters had hoped one of them could be a donor, but the doctors were not initially optimistic, in part because only 25 per cent of patients find a match within their own families.
Image of Cord Blood Donor Jessica Thomas holding her baby

Jessica Thomas

Cord Blood Donor

Jessica Thomas is also a blood donor, stem cell registrant, financial supporter and philanthropic ambassador for Canadian Blood Services. In 2011, the Campaign for All Canadians raised more than $12.5 million from financial donors across the country to establish a national public cord blood bank.
Photo of the Bulger Family on the beach before Cameron passed away in May 2020.

The Bulger family

The Schilly Award

Sharon’s son Cameron was just nine years old when he died of a rare brain cancer in May 2020. The Bulger family is receiving this year’s Schilly Award, which honours a person or group who has contributed significantly to donor recruitment or public awareness of the need for blood, stem cells, or organs and tissues.
Image of plasma recipient Heydan Morrison and mother Shannon Morrison

Heydan Morrison and family

Recipient Speaker

Heydan Morrison, now nine, has relied on immunoglobulin — a medication derived from donated plasma — since he was five years old. His mother, Shannon, expects he’ll need it for the rest of his life to treat a rare immune disorder called hypogammaglobulinemia.
Headshot image of Aaron Barlow standing in front of a bush.

Aaron Barlow

Living our values award (individual)

“At Canadian Blood Services, people have the chance to give life’s essentials to patients in Canada and to become involved in something greater than themselves,” says Aaron Barlow, a territory manager with Canadian Blood Services in Regina, Sask.
Image of Charlottetown donor centre with the Canadian Blood Services signage outside.

Charlottetown donor centre

Living our values award (team)

“We know our donors, and we all work together to provide the best experience possible,” says Jacob Perry, donor centre supervisor in Charlottetown, P.E.I. “All the team members have their own strengths and are encouraged to use them at work.”
Image of Jerry Glubisz sitting in a chair donating plasma for COVID-19 being the first Convalescent Plasma Donor.

Jerry Glubisz

COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Donor

In April 2020, Jerry became Canadian Blood Services’ first donor of COVID-19 convalescent plasma. Plasma is a component of blood, and COVID-19 convalescent plasma is plasma obtained from fully recovered COVID-19 patients.
Image of Dr Shelly Sarwal in a wheelchair and Randy Tresidder behind pushing the wheelchair while going out for a stroll

Dr. Shelly Sarwal and Randy Tresidder

Logan Boulet Award

Diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), an incurable disease, Shelly Sarwal chose to undergo the recently legalized Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) procedure and become an organ donor.