Kiwanis Club of Ottawa Jumpstarts ACT Foundation's High School CPR –Dollars for Mannequins– Campaign with $12,000 donation and Celebration of Ottawa Rescue

OTTAWA – February 27, 2004, Chateau Laurier Hotel, 1:00 p.m. — The Advanced Coronary Treatment (ACT) Foundation unveils its “Dollars for Mannequins” campaign with a $12,000 donation from the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa Medical Foundation. This event will be marked with the celebration of Woodroffe High School student Rob Simpson’s 21st birthday. Rob’s life was saved with CPR when he suffered a cardiac arrest on January 16th of this year. Rob’s two vice principals, both trained in the ACT program, came to Rob’s aid with lifesaving CPR. The goal of ACT’s fundraising campaign is to raise $48,000 to purchase 480 CPR training mannequins for Ottawa high schools.

“The Kiwanis Club of Ottawa is delighted to continue its support of the ACT Foundation’s High School CPR Program,” says club president, David Daubney. “We’ve been on board since the beginning in 1994, and want to ensure all Ottawa high schools have the CPR mannequins they need so all youth will be trained in CPR.”

The ACT Foundation, with the support of local partners, launched the high school CPR program as a pilot in some of Ottawa’s schools in 1994. At that time, the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa and its Medical Foundation donated $62,500 for 800 mannequins for schools. High school teachers were trained by St. John Ambulance as CPR instructors to teach their students. The Ottawa Citizen, donates the printing of student manuals to schools every year and medical direction comes from the Ottawa Base Hospital Program through Dr. Justin Maloney. Now, almost ten years later, 50,000 Ottawa students have been trained in CPR. The program’s success has seen it spread to more than 600 high schools across Canada and over 500,000 youth have been trained to date.

“We are now turning our attention back to Ottawa, with the goal of ensuring that all of our schools have the lifesaving CPR program”, says ACT Foundation Executive Director, Sandra Clarke. “We urge Ottawa businesses to follow the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa Medical Foundation’s lead and sponsor mannequins for their local schools”. The mannequins can be sponsored for $100 each. Three hundred and sixty (360) mannequins still need to be sponsored.

About the ACT Foundation
The ACT Foundation is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to establishing CPR as a mandatory program in every Canadian high school. ACT raises funds for CPR mannequins for schools and guides schools in program setup. ACT’s corporate health partners are committed to ACT’s cross-Canada expansion of the program. They are companies in the research-based pharmaceutical industry: AstraZeneca, Aventis Pharma and Pfizer Canada.