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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, October 30, 2015 | 12 ErinoakKids celebrates Pride & Joy by Nathan Howes Special to the Beaver It's a match!!! Now is the time to double your impact for those in need in Oakville. Thanks to a very generous contributor, all new monthly donors who pledge to Kerr Street Mission will be matched dollar for dollar up to $75,000. That means that your contribution goes twice as far in providing assistance to the many people in our community who depend upon KSM for help. More than just a food bank, KSM provides financial counselling, child and youth programming and a whole lot more. For as little as $2 a day your monthly donations go a long way towards helping people in real, critical need. The clients at ErinoakKids Centre for Treatment and Development are celebrated every year as the group's pride and joy. Held at Oakville Conference Centre last Friday, the ErinoakKids' Pride & Joy Awards recognized the achievements of more than 15,000 children and youths served by ErinoakKids, Ontario's largest children's treatment centre. The event was hosted by Oakville's Dr. Dave Williams, a retired astronaut and president and CEO of Southlake Regional Health Centre. ErinoakKids helps children and youths with physical, development and communicative disabilities achieve levels of independence, learning, health and well-being. "This evening we're celebrating an amazing group of deserving award recipients. My story is a story of dreams, as is the story that we're sharing tonight (Oct. 23)," said Williams. "We're here in a room of difference-makers... people who are passionate about making a difference in the lives of those 15,000 individuals touched every year by ErinoakKids." Williams told the story of his dream of going into space, which almost didn't come to fruition. But years of persistence paid off in 1992 when he was one of four candidates selected from 5,330 applicants for astronaut training. "Back in those days (the ErinoakKids Centre for Treatment and Development held its fifth annual Pride & Joy fundraising gala at the Oakville Conference Centre. It was hosted by retired Canadian astronaut Dave Williams, who is pictured here, presenting Oakville's Rachel Dean with the Sean & Lynne Seawright Scholarship award. | photo by Graham Paine ­ Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog or facebook.com/HaltonPhotog) 1960s), Canada was the third country flying satellites into space. We didn't have a program where astronauts flew into space. I was told my dream was impossible. You could not do that," said Williams. "I thought, `How is that fair?' I wanted to be able to go out into space and do the incredible things that I was watching on television." He said the magic of flying in space is "truly transformational," as one of his proudest moments was riding the Canada Arm during his second trek into space in 2007. "When you have a chance to see the planet from a totally different perspective, it changes your outlook on so many things," said Williams. Ontario Labour Minister and Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn said he looks forward to attending the Pride & Joy Awards every year because it celebrates the achievements of "this wonderful organization." "There are a lot of children, a lot of youths who have made remarkable achievements, reaching optimal levels of independence, learning, health and well-being. That's thanks to the support that is provided by ErinoakKids," said Flynn. The services of children's treatment centres are an important part of "how Ontario helps young people with special needs achieve that full potential we know they can," Flynn said. "We try to expand, in partnership with ErinoakKids, access to things like physiotherapy , occupational therapy , speechlanguage therapy. This is going to help serve another 2,000 children and youths across this province," said Flynn. Longo's Family Charitable Foundation chair Rosanne Longo announced its new matching gift program to raise $1.5 million for ErinoakKids' redevelopment project to consolidate its current spaces into three new statesee ErinoakKids on p.13 Yes, I'll become a new monthly donor. REBATES ARE BACK! ACT NOW!! UP $ TO RECEIVE Click DONATE at kerrstreet.com to set up your matched donation. IN REBATES 2965 $ Was NOW ONly Per month 58 * Per month $1465 FACTORy REBATE UP TO $ *Call for details Over 120,000 satisfied custOmers caLL noW, Quantities are LiMiteD! Furnace Diagnostic service Was 29 UNION GAS REBATE $850 UP TO + + OAC $650 OPA REBATE UP TO $99 ONly $ 49 www.kerrstreet.com 485Kerr Street · Oakville, ON · L6K 3C6 905-845-7485 9 Locations to serve you better Heating & Cooling www.aireone.com 905-849-4998 1-888-827-2665