An Excerpt from Volume 2, Issue 1
September 2020
The Loon's Feature Person: Sandy VanOstrand
This is Sandy VanOstrand from Richmond, British Columbia. Sandy attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, is a golfer, and has been teaching herself Spanish over the last two years. She found PSC Partners Seeking a Cure online about 12 years ago and has been involved ever since. When asked what she enjoys the most about being a part of the PSC community, she had this to say: “ [It’s a] great place to go to get reliable information. I believe by working together we can find a way to cure this disease and PSC Partners is made up of people who have the passion, energy, experience, and knowledge to find a cure for this terrible disease.”
When her son was diagnosed with PSC, Sandy said it had a way of “spurring me on to do something.” “I believe it is easiest to raise the large chunks of money when people are first diagnosed and everyone is asking what they can do to help.”

Sandy’s first foray into fundraising for PSC research was before PSC Partners Canada was formed. She knew that fundraising for a Canadian organization that could write tax receipts for Canadain donors would make a difference, so Sandy worked with the Canadian Liver Foundation, and convinced them to make a policy exception and divert all funds that Sandy raised to PSC-specific research. Sandy and her event was able to fund the following study: Pediatric PSC-IBD: Optimizing colitis monitoring strategies to enhance liver disease outcomes.” 
So many friends were sorry to hear about the diagnosis and a fundraiser gave them the opportunity to come together to help out also. Sandy wanted the fundraiser she planned to be minimum outlay of cost so all the money collected could go to research. A large local pub was the perfect answer. She promoted it in a fun way so that 100 people bought $25.00 tickets to come for a burger and an enjoyable evening out. While they were there they could participate with a raffle and the silent auction. Because these were friends of the family and she knew what kinds of things they would be interested in paying money for, her silent auction items were very popular and almost everything went for the full value. 
 
Once PSC Partners Canada was formed, Sandy used this same format two additional times to raise funds for PSC Partners Canada. She planned a two-year break in between each event. Now she is looking at some other options for fundraising as well as promoting registration for organ donation in the community.

In 2018, Sandy was recognized by PSC Partners Canada with the Community Dedication Award for her continuing work towards raising funds for research towards a cure! Together, Sandy’s three community events have raised over $60,000 for PSC research. 

Thank you for all of your wonderful work Sandy!
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