When you donate to the Windsor Regional Hospital, you won't be donating to its Life Legacy Society anymore. The name of the program has been changed to The John Thomas Fanscy Legacy Society.
Fanscy left a transformational gift of about $40-million in his will to the new acute care hospital in Windsor-Essex, which now bears his name.
The name of the hospital was revealed earlier this summer.
The donation is the largest publicly known gift in the Windsor-Essex region and ranks among the largest donations ever left in a will to a single organization in Canada.
At the Foundation's annual legacy society event last Wednesday, officials announced the new name of the donation program with members of the Fanscy family in tow.
"We are deeply honoured to learn that the Legacy Society will be renamed in John's memory," said Terry Fanscy, his sister. "Nothing could have meant more to him than knowing his gift might encourage others to think about their own legacy, to consider how each of us can continue giving, even after we're gone."
Fanscy said her brother decided to make the massive donation before he underwent surgery for spinal stenosis at the Ouellette Campus.
"During his recovery, John saw firsthand the challenges our current hospital faces, the crowded rooms, the limited privacy, the constraints that staff and patients navigate every day. Rather than focus on his own situation, he quietly observed, always thinking about how his gift could help meet the community's needs for generations to come," Terry Fanscy continued.
Apart from leaving a gift in a will, legacy donors can name the hospital as the beneficiary of stocks, life insurance, charitable reminder trusts, and more.
