Giving, Our Way

Giving is pretty much a habit for the people of trucking. There’s an amazing abundance of generosity in this tough industry that I don’t think you’ll find anywhere else. Have you ever, for instance, seen a parade that didn’t have the volunteer participation of a local trucking outfit to pull a float or five? It’s no small thing, and it’s part of our fabric.

A recent example: a couple months back Cummins Eastern Canada President Mike Christodoulou set out to send 100 kids to Walt Disney World in Florida through the Dreams Take Flight program. It’s run by Air Canada employees and retirees who organize the trip of a lifetime for physically, mentally or socially challenged children.

He raised a whopping $100,000 in one day. He did so by playing six straight rounds of golf at Hudson’s Falcon Golf Club near Montreal, having challenged the industry to sponsor him hole by hole for 100 holes. Christodoulou actually played 108 — “It makes no sense to stop in the middle of a round,” he told us. He teed off a little before 7:00 a.m. and played number 108 some 10 hours later. Mike didn’t pressure anyone to give, he just wrote letters to trucking friends and associates asking for their help. And they responded in a big way.

One hundred grand is a key figure in another one-man fund-raising effort, though this one aims to reach $1 million. Canpar President and CEO John Cyopeck recently donated $100,000 of his own money and made a very ambitious commitment to raise another $900,000 by the end of August for the Trillium Health Centre, a first-rate, internationally recognized community hospital with locations in Mississauga, Ont. and west Toronto.

His pledge took the hospital’s fund-raising chief by surprise, but if anyone can do it, I’d bet on him.

For Cyopeck, who was named chairman of the Canadian Trucking Alliance in April, it’s personal. As personal as it gets. Back in February he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and has since had an operation there to remove the tumor. Though still under treatment, he works as hard as ever and professes to feeling just fine.

For good reason, then, his million-dollar pledge is targeted to support the construction of facilities to house the hospital’s new MRI unit.

“I feel compelled to give back to Trillium and to assist those who, like me, are directly affected by stressful and life-threatening delays in receiving MRI treatments,” Cyopeck says. “Our hospital is the centre of this community and it is vital that we provide its doctors and staff with the best tools possible to do their job. I am pleased to do my part.”

His part is actually a pledge within a pledge. Local developer Harold Shipp earlier issued a challenge to have others match his $6-million contribution dollar for dollar. Cyopeck answered that call, and with the help of his friend Rick Gaetz, president and CEO of Vitran Corp., himself no stranger to charity work, he established the John Cyopeck Delivering a Dream Campaign.

For those who know him, it’s not surprising that Cyopeck should step up this way in spite of his own challenge with its weekly radiation treatments. Cyopeck is a gutsy veteran, a leader, and the nicest of guys. Now 60, he’s spent almost 50 years in trucking, having helped his father at CN Express on weekends as a kid, then becoming a full-time truck driver — and eventually Teamsters steward. He climbed a few ladders over the years, becoming Canpar president and CEO in 1990. He’s the chief reason for Canpar’s turnaround in the 1990s. It was bought by the TransForce Income Fund in 2002.

Cyopeck has established a mighty good reputation in this industry over those years, along with a lot of friendships, and he’ll be looking for donations from fellow truckers to meet his million-dollar target.

His chief fund-raiser (now all but sold out) will be a pro-am golf tournament at Rattlesnake Point Golf Club on August 29, but there are ways for non-golfers to donate as well. For more information call John at 905-897-3631. Or just send a cheque — “No amount is too small,” he says — made out to the Trillium Health Centre Foundation, marked ‘Delivering a Dream’ in the comments box, to his attention at Canpar: 1290 Central Parkway West, Suite 500, Mississauga, Ont. L5C 4R9.