BY BILL PHILLIPS
Kordyban Lodge is turning five years old.
Located adjacent to the BC Cancer Agency’s Centre for the North, its 36 beds offer a nice, homey place to stay for those from across the North who travel here for radiation and/or chemotherapy treatment.
It came about after a lot of wrangling, an eventual land swap, and a $2 million donation from Mary Kordyban, in memory of her husband Bill, who died of cancer. In 2007, she established a foundation and invested money to be used for cancer care in the north or for cancer patients in Prince George. In 2009, the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) announced it would be building a lodge in Prince George and with the donation, it would be named Kordyban Lodge. Bill Kordyban was the owner of Carrier Lumber. The facility also received a $1 million donation each from the Novak family, which owns Dunkley Lumber, and the Ketcham family, which owns West Fraser.
To recognize the five-year milestone there will be donor event today, followed by an open house at the facility at 1100 Alward Street from 3-4:30 p.m.
To help with the festivities and personally thank some of the donors, the leadership team from the Canadian Cancer Society office in Vancouver is in Prince George today.
“We’re really here to celebrate all of the lives that we’ve touched and supported here in Prince George and in the neighbouring areas, with regards to their cancer journeys,” Sofia Janmohamed, the society’s director of leadership giving, told the Daily News. “Our hope is that we’re going to have five, and 10 and many more years at the Kordyban Lodge.
Janmohamed met with Mary Kordyban and called her an “amazing soul,” and will be meeting with other major donors to the lodge over the years.
“We really wanted the opportunity to meet with the key partners in the Prince George area,”she said. “With regards to all of the impacts they’re having in the community with regards to the Canadian Cancer Society.”
She said they wanted to meet people face-to-face.
“It really helps solidify what we do, day-to-day,” she said.
The open house is for anyone who wants to come and see the lodge and meet the people who work at the Kordyban Lodge.
