Fund Type: Memorial
Community: Prince George
The Mavrik Turnbull Legacy Fund was established to receive donations and community support on behalf of the Mavrik Turnbull Foundation.
Mavrik was a three year old boy from Prince George, who battled stage 4, high-risk, neuroblastoma for 21 months before passing. Mavrik learned to walk around 8 months with a hockey stick in his hand and would refuse to leave the house without a jersey on. Mavrik was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his second birthday. What mattered most to Mavrik at that time was hockey. When he was airlifted from Prince George to Vancouver, he had to bring his hockey sticks. Mavrik fought through treatment by playing hockey, watching hockey, and doing anything hockey (hockey cards, hockey Lego, hockey board games) and especially hockey games. Any break between treatment we brought Mavrik to a hockey game. Mavrik’s favourite songs were O’Canada, The Hockey Song, We Will Rock You, and Wow (the Cougars goal song). Mavrik truly lived and breathed hockey.
The Mavrik Turnbull Foundation will support Prince George (and potentially the north) children with oncology or medical needs. The goal is to support one child per year to purchase a set amount of hockey gear and help with hockey fees. With preference to a child with current or previous oncology involvement. However, it will be open up to other children with medical diagnosis if there is not a suitable oncology child/youth. As the foundation and fund grows, we would like to support more than 1 player per year.
Additionally, the Mavrik Turnbull Foundation will raise and distribute funds to British Columbia children/youth with a preference to Prince George and northern families to support travel, food, and other related expenses for oncology care. As a family who has utilized and accessed programs and services and travelled the last 21 months to and from Vancouver for paediatric oncology care, there is a large gap for funding, services and supports. We would like families/social workers to have the ability to reach out to the Mavrik Turnbull Foundation requesting support and our team members would direct a cheque or gift cards to the family. This application process and funding amounts will be established in the weeks to come.
We, Mavrik’s family, have many ideas of how to grow the Mavrik Turnbull Foundation over the years to come to encompass counselling supports for oncology families, counselling and support for bereaved parents of medical parents, and help fund medical based programs to get better cancer care and treatment options for children. As well as put together packages for children and their families for after diagnosis when they first arrive to BC Children’s. We see so many gaps in the north for oncology care for the children in our community and we plan to honour Mavrik by helping other families and building in as much hockey as we can.
Because what we know about Prince George, the North and the hockey community is they care. We wouldn’t be here without our community of people and we trust our community to honour Mavrik and remember him.
Thank you,
The family of Mavrik Turnbull
