Paying for their education has become a little easier for some nursing students, thanks to a $500,000 gift from the estate of Bluma Appel, given to support student awards at the University of Toronto’s Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.

Undergraduate awards will receive a boost of $300,000 and graduate awards will receive $200,000. Graduate awards are uniquely earmarked for students experienced in or interested in the following areas of nursing: pain management; neuroscience; or palliative care.

The endowments are eligible for matching from the provincial government’s Ontario Trust for Student Support fund bringing the total injection to $1 million in support of student awards.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer financial support to our students with this generous gift,” says Dr. Sioban Nelson, Dean of the Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing. “Not only is this endowment distinctly earmarked for these contemporary challenges in patient care, but the donors have been truly forward thinking and ensured we can change the foci of the awards in the future, if necessary, so we can continue to support students to work on the most important questions in the years ahead.”

The awards were made in honour of Ms. Jeannie Butler, a longtime friend of the late Mrs. Appel. Ms. Butler, a registered nurse, is an enthusiastic supporter of and volunteer with the LSB Faculty of Nursing.

“I was thrilled and honoured to hear about this gift,” says Ms. Butler. “Bluma was a champion of nurses. We hope these awards will attract more people to the profession, and help retain them because we need them.” The late Mrs. Appel was a Toronto activist, arts supporter and philanthropist, well-known for her support of health-related causes.

The isolation room at the Clinical Simulation Learning Centre (SIMS Lab), the innovative and cutting-edge teaching laboratory at the LSB Faculty of Nursing, is named in her honour, in appreciation of her $350,000 gift to the faculty in 2006.

Also in 2006, she received an honorary degree jointly from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the LSB Faculty of Nursing.

Visit us online at: www.nursing.utoronto.ca

For further information, please contact:
Vicki MacCrimmon, Senior Development Officer
LSB Faculty of Nursing
416-978-2861
vicki.maccrimmon@utoronto.ca