$1 million estate donation to Penticton hospital expansion

The South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation is inching closer to its fundraising goal for the Penticton Regional Hospital expansion project thanks to a generous estate donation from a late Penticton couple.

Claire and Ed Festel left an apartment building in Whitehorse in the Northwest Territories in their will to the foundation and it was recently sold for more than $1 million.

The money will help provide medical equipment for the hospital expansion.

A statement from foundation spokesperson John Moorhouse says Swiss-born Eduard Festel passed away at age 65 in Aug. 2016 – just two years after Claire’s death in June 2014 at age 57.

Ed, an experienced pilot, moved to Canada in 1984 and soon purchased a wilderness lodge in the Yukon.

In addition to the lodge, Ed ran wilderness kayak/canoe tours down the Yukon and Teslin rivers as well as dog team excursions.

Claire was born in Gaspé, Quebec and later moved to the Yukon where she met Ed in 1994 while she was applying for a job with Tourism Yukon in Whitehorse. They quickly discovered they shared a deep passion for the North and married in 1998.

Ed sold the Frances Lake Lodge in 1999.  However, he continued to own a 23-unit apartment building in Whitehorse, even after he and Claire moved to Penticton in 2009.

They also kept their own unit in the building – Claire could not leave the North without knowing she could return whenever her heart desired.

In the Okanagan, Ed quickly became an active member of the Penticton Flying Club and helped resurrect the local branch of the volunteer Civil Air Search & Rescue Association (CASARA) which helps search for missing aircraft and assists in other emergency situations.

More than $16 million has now been raised, with the hospital’s new patient care tower due to open in April 2019.

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