Joan Wilson (Image Credit: RIH Foundation)

By Dylana Kneeshaw

JOAN WILSON'S LEGACY

Longtime Kamloops resident leaves RIH Foundation and YMCA-YWCA with $100,000 each

Nov 17, 2020 | 11:31 AM

KAMLOOPS — Local community member Joan Wilson has made a significant contribution to enhance the city she loved, giving $100,000 each to the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation and the local YMCA-YWCA.

In a release, the RIH Foundation says Wilson passed away March 8, 2020 at the Marjorie Willoughby Snowden Hospice House — leaving this legacy gift to two organizations close to her heart.

“Joan Wilson’s legacy gift is a wonderful donation,” says Heidi Coleman, RIH Foundation CEO. “Through this gift, even though she is no longer with us, she has ensured that the community she cared so much about will continue to benefit from her generosity.”

Joan and her husband Brian moved from England to Canada in 1953 and lived in Kamloops for more than 60 years. Brian worked in businesses throughout the city, including the meat department at Woodward’s Department Store, while Joan was a nurse at RIH, eventually becoming the head nurse of the Health Unit on the North Shore. It’s estimated Joan delivered more than 2,000 babies while she worked as a midwife.

Joan and Brian’s love for Kamloops grew even stronger over the years as they spent their time living on their ranch and taking advantage of the amenities the local geography has to offer before Brian passed away in 2016.

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Joan kept up her involvement in the RiverBend community as the blood pressure go-to person and columnist for ‘About Your Health’ in the Mainstream newsletter. She helped to form the Women’s Shelter and Cottonwood Manors seniors housing, and volunteered as president for Senior’s Outreach and the Kamloops Liaison Council for Seniors. With this she also helped create seniors day at the North Shore Safeway, where seniors could get a cup of tea, cookies and help with their shopping.

In recognition of her sizable contributions to Kamloops, Joan received a Special Community Contribution Certificate, signed and sealed by Kamloops’ Member of Parliament Nelson Riis.

She was also a regular member of the aquafit classes at the YMCA and CEO Colin Reid says Wilson lived a life where she contributed to individual and community health.

“Joan was a regular participant in Y activities and she was keen to share her thoughts about how the Y was serving the community and she was always willing to do her part,” he says in the release. “Her gift is a legacy that has come at just the right time and it is an example of her belief in being a steward for future generations. Thank you Joan!”