Fondation du CHUS | Cuistots le temps d’une pandémie raises $184,922 for the CHUS Foundation

Community initiatives

To date, their work has raised an impressive amount of $184,922 for the CHUS Foundation. Sensitive to the impact of the pandemic on their loved ones and colleagues, the two women decided to launch, in January 2021, an initiative that would make it possible to mitigate the collateral damage of the pandemic on our health system. This initiative is a cookbook for the benefit of the CHUS Foundation that brings together culinary favorites, but above all caring people: personalities brought to the forefront by the circumstances, business people affected by the cause, citizens affected by the disease... In short, caring humans who all want the same thing: to do their part for the collective well-being.

From left to right: Catherine Laferté and Annabelle Harpin

In this sense, the two initiators of this project, Catherine Laferté and Annabelle Harpin, have chosen to dedicate the funds raised by Cuistots le temps d’une pandémie to the development of three “family rooms” within the new Centre Mère-Enfant et Urgence (CMEU) of the CIUSSS de l'Estrie — CHUS, thus making it possible to offer intimate, calm and comforting gathering environments, in connection with stays, the difficult events and bereavements experienced by hospital users and their families. These lounges will be located in the neonatology and pediatrics sectors of the CMEU as well as in the emergency department of the CHUS, which will be moved to the CMEU. Like their unifying project, the two founders wanted to highlight the power of being together with loved ones through the difficult moments of life, whether it be a pandemic or illness.

Beyond the hundred people behind the recipes, the success of this book is also due to the cohesion of those who collaborated on it, directly or indirectly. A video has also been posted online to highlight their contribution and to summarize the main lines of the project.

Obviously, this success would not have been the same without the interest of the people who massively purchased this book... Already more than 1,760 copies have found buyers and the book is already being reprinted, as the demand is so great. There are a few copies left in the various points of sale and it is also possible to pre-order them via the CHUS Foundation website, with delivery scheduled for February.

“I want to thank all the contributors to the Cuistots le temps d’une pandémie. It is an initiative that has really been very well received at the Foundation. We were very happy that it was run by two young female medical students! It's a very timely project because we had more difficulty mobilizing people in fundraising because of the pandemic, and also timely in the sense that we were confined to our homes and cooked more... So it gave excellent results”, underlined Martin Clermont, Executive Director of the CHUS Foundation.

Each year, a few dozen community initiatives, such as this cookbook, make it possible not only to raise funds to support the CHUS Foundation in its mission, but also to create networks of solidarity and to strengthen the feeling of belonging. The Foundation is always happy to offer support and visibility to them.

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184,922

raised