The estate of the businesswoman who previously made the biggest donation by an individual to a Canadian charity in history has now made the largest-ever gift to the St. Boniface Hospital Foundation.
Miriam Bergen, who died at age 66 in January 2022, had arranged for about $500 million in Appleton Holdings Ltd. shares to be donated from her estate to the Winnipeg Foundation. The owner and president of Appleton, a development company that owns and manages several large residential buildings, had no heir to pass on the company to.
The hospital foundation announced the record $10-million donation Monday. Half of the money will go to the hospital’s new emergency department, and half will go to its cardiac sciences program.
Hospital foundation president and CEO Karen Fowler said in a news release that she was humbled and honoured when she learned about the donation.
“I was left in awe and wonder that Miriam thought so highly of St. B and her relationship with the hospital that she would leave a gift of that magnitude,” she said.
Doris Gietz, Bergen’s younger cousin on her maternal side and one of three executors of her estate, said Bergen was raised in a family where it was important to give back to the community.
“She would say, ‘This is just what we Bergens do,’” Gietz said in the statement.
Bergen’s parents, Martin and Ruth Bergen, made a $3-million donation to the hospital to create the Bergen Cardiac Care Centre in 2006.
St. Boniface Hospital president and CEO Nicole Aminot said Bergen’s gift is transformational.
“Words are not adequate to express what this gift means to our patients and our front-line heroes,” she said. “St. Boniface Hospital is so very thankful to Miriam. We will make Miriam and her family proud.”
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca