The Donor: David Hamer
The Gift: $120,000 and climbing
The Cause: Starfish Canada
The Reason: To help South African children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS
Ever since he won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1974, Toronto lawyer David Hamer has felt an indebtedness to South Africa, where Cecil Rhodes made his fortune that created the scholarship.
In 2003, Mr. Hamer travelled to South Africa with his family to attend a centenary celebration of the scholarship. During the trip they heard a presentation by a new British charity called Starfish Greathearts Foundation. It had been established to work with South African children coping with the effects of HIV/AIDS.
"We were very taken by the idea of the cause," Mr. Hamer recalled. "We travelled quite a bit in South Africa … and saw the conditions there."
When he returned home, he started raising money for the charity, holding regular Dinners of Hope with neighbours and friends. In 2004, he helped established a formal Canadian branch called Starfish Canada.
The Canadian charity has raised about $120,000 so far. It has no staff but funds programs recommended by Starfish Greathearts. It works with groups in South Africa to identify effective grass-roots projects and follows up with regular monitoring. Starfish Canada is currently funding a program called the Keiskamma Trust. The trust works with rural families in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, providing educational support to children as well as health care and anti-retroviral drugs. Mr. Hamer said the area has a high rate of HIV/AIDS infection and unemployment is close to 90 per cent.
Mr. Hamer credits much of Starfish Canada's recent success to Laura Jenner, who worked in southern Africa on HIV/AIDS projects in 2005 after graduating from the University of Toronto. Ms. Jenner, now a learning consultant at Toronto-Dominion Bank, got involved with Starfish in 2008 and is helping broaden the charity's fundraising and outreach programs.
Mr. Hamer has yet to return to South Africa to see the impact of Starfish Canada's efforts. "I feel very closely connected [to the country]" he said. "But I've actually never been back. I will go back."