Trio Pledge $1,000,000

On a day when the heart was a powerful symbol, three partners revealed plans to raise $1 million to help Niagara cardiac patients.

PerformanceCars announced its commitment to work with the May Court Club of St. Catharines and the Rotary Club of St. Catharines South to help pay for the construction of a regional cardiac catheterization lab at the hospital complex planned for St. Catharines.

The St. Catharines car dealership and the two service clubs announced their partnership on Valentine's Day, pledging to raise $1 million for the Niagara Health System Foundation's capital campaign over the next five years.

"February is heart month and so we thought, 'Let's go for Valentine's Day,' " Rotary club president June Manning said.

The money will be generated through an annual black-tie fundraising event - the "Take it to Heart Gala" - organized by the two service clubs and PerformanceCars.

The car dealership has committed to donate $250,000 towards the fundraising initiative and will work with the service clubs to generate the remaining $750,000.

PerformanceCars is excited to partner with the clubs, co-founder John Mann said in a news release.

"The May Court Club of St. Catharines and the Rotary Club of St. Catharines South have a proven track record and commitment to our community which has inspired the management and staff of PerformanceCars to take the Niagara Regional Cardiac Catheterization Centre initiative ... to heart," he said.

The two service clubs have a history of working together on community projects over the past seven years.

They raised approximately $400,000 together for Hospice Niagara's new residential palliative-care centre through a series of annual winter galas.

"We hope to repeat that with more for the cardiac cath lab," said Melody Cunningham, who chairs the Take it to Heart Gala for the May Court Club.

Both Cunningham and Manning said they felt the $1-million target is attainable.

"It's something that we need here and we felt the target was doable," Manning said.

The two clubs held the first gala in support of the new cardiac centre last November, raising nearly $32,000. The next one is already being planned for Nov. 15.

Currently, Niagara residents have to travel outside the region for angiograms and angioplasty because there are no cardiac cath labs at any local hospitals.

Recent statistics indicate approximately 1,800 people from Niagara receive cardiac catheterization procedures each year - roughly 70 per cent of them in Hamilton.

Building a cath lab at the new hospital will enable many Niagara patients to receive treatment closer to home, said Bill Hallett, president and chief executive officer of the NHS Foundation.

"In really general terms, if a person has a heart attack ... and can get to a cath lab within one and a half to two hours, chances are their life will be saved and there will be no damage to their heart," he said.

The cardiac cath lab is being planned as part of a new hospital complex to be built in the city's west end.

The hospital will be built at First Street and Fourth Avenue and will replace St. Catharines General Hospital and the Ontario Street site of the NHS.

The NHS Foundation is in the midst of Niagara's largest-ever capital fundraising campaign.

It's trying to raise $25 million toward the tab for the hospital complex, which will also include a regional cancer treatment centre and long-term mental-health beds.

The foundation is raising an additional $15 million at the same time for improvements at NHS hospitals across the region.

The new hospital complex is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2011.