Nursing is in his DNA

Feb. 14, 2024

Innisfil resident, Chris Gariepy, is known for giving back to his community, particularly to Georgian College where he has been an enthusiastic participant on many volunteer committees and boards over the years. But, when he was asked to co-chair the Simcoe County advisory committee of the Frontline Support: Health-care Heroes Closer to Home campaign, it was personal – very personal.

“Nursing is something that’s close to my heart,” he explains. “My mother was a nurse. My grandmother was a nurse. My aunts were nurses. My sister is a nurse and so is my daughter. So, you know, the campaign just checked all the boxes for me.”

In 2020, the provincial government announced that colleges could offer four-year nursing degree programs on a stand-alone basis beginning in 2022. Before then, students who began their Honours Bachelor of Science – Nursing degree at Georgian’s Barrie Campus, had to leave the region after their second year to complete the final two years of their program at York University.

Kicking off in 2022, with the inaugural intake of Honours Bachelor of Science – Nursing degree students, they will complete all four years at Georgian. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for Chris and his wife Debra’s daughter, who started the program in Barrie back in 2011 for her first two years and then had to complete her nursing degree at York University because of the collaborative program requirements at the time.

“My daughter went through this program and then we lost her because she went to York U for the second half of it,” he says. “Of course, what happens when they’re at York, their co-ops and placements tend to be in the GTA area or Southern Ontario, and those students don’t come back … In our case, we don’t get to see our grandson in person as often as we’d love to. So, it’s personal. I have a feeling that’s very common in many families from Barrie or the larger Simcoe County area.”

Nursing is something that’s close to my heart,” he explains. “My mother was a nurse. My grandmother was a nurse. My aunts were nurses. My sister is a nurse and so is my daughter. So, you know, the campaign just checked all the boxes for me.

Chris Gariepy

Georgian launched its Frontline Support campaign to raise funds to transform nursing learning environments and equipment, and create new awards, scholarships and bursaries at the Barrie and Owen Sound campuses in 2021, with a robust campaign advisory serving in each community.  

Chris credits the support of Debra and their children through the years as he’s been involved in the community, and he believes the same strong bond to family and community in the people he talked to was the reason the campaign was so successful.

“How quickly people came on board and understood what was happening when I was looking for support, impressed me the most,” he says. “We were able to welcome people into this campaign who made very generous donations and are engaging with Georgian at a whole new level. It was amazing to see the community pull together like that.”