BC Children's Hospital receives $5 million gift from TELUS

Donation marks three decades of dedicated support for British Columbia's most vulnerable pediatric patients and their families

VANCOUVER, Dec. 11, 2012 /CNW/ - TELUS announced today a $5 million gift to BC Children's Hospital to support British Columbia's seriously ill and injured children and their families. The contribution reflects the longstanding partnership between TELUS and BC Children's Hospital, which has promoted the fusion of innovative healthcare and technology solutions to improve health outcomes for children.

The $5 million donation will be used by the remarkable team at BC Children's Hospital to provide comfort and care to our province's most vulnerable pediatric patients and their families.

TELUS has been an ardent supporter of BC Children's Hospital from the time it opened its doors in 1982. Since 2000, TELUS has contributed $10 million and more importantly, its employees and retirees have volunteered more than 20,000 hours of service to support the critical care provided at the hospital. More than $2.2 million of TELUS' contribution to date was raised through the organization's employee Charitable Giving program, which sees TELUS match each employee's personal donation to a charity of their choice, dollar-for-dollar.

"On behalf of our 25,000 team members and retirees in British Columbia, we are honoured to grant this gift to support the BC Children's Hospital," said Darren Entwistle, TELUS president and CEO. "We have been privileged to support the delivery of best-in-class healthcare to improve prognoses for critically ill and injured children and their families for three decades. Undoubtedly, undergoing treatment for a serious illness or injury is one of the most significant challenges that a child and their family can face. We are hopeful that today's gift will help our home province's children and their families in a meaningful way when they are being supported by the incredibly caring team at BC Children's."

In addition to today's gift, TELUS continues to manage BC Children's Hospital's Upopolis program, a safe online social networking site launched in 2009 that allows kids to maintain a secure connection with family, friends, teachers and fellow patients so they can stay up-to-date with school work, entertain themselves and have access to kid-friendly information about their illness or injury while in hospital.

TELUS is also proud to provide complimentary mobile airtime packages for BC Children's Hospital Foundation staff totalling more than $1 million and support key fundraising initiatives such as The Miracle Weekend Telethon, Festival of Trees, the Crystal Ball and Jeans Day. Since its inception, TELUS has donated more than $700,000 to the Miracle Weekend Telethon through call centre support, the Online Miracle Match and the Miracle Hour. In 2008, TELUS partnered with BC Children's Hospital for the TELUS World Skins Game, a tremendously successful event that resulted in a $250,000 contribution.

About TELUS
TELUS (TSX: T, T.A; NYSE: TU) is a leading telecommunications company in Canada, thanks to $10.8 billion in annual revenue and 13 million customer connections, including 7.6 million wireless subscribers, 3.5 million wireline network access lines, 1.3 million Internet subscribers and 635,000 TELUS TV customers. Led since 2000 by President and CEO, Darren Entwistle, TELUS provides a wide range of communications products and services, including wireless, data, Internet Protocol (IP), voice, television, entertainment and video.

In support of our philosophy to give where we live, TELUS, our team members and retirees have contributed more than $260 million to numerous charitable and not-for-profit organizations and volunteered 4.2 million hours of service to local communities since 2000. Fourteen TELUS Community Boards lead TELUS' local philanthropic initiatives. TELUS was honoured to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company to receive this prestigious international recognition.

For more information about TELUS, please visit telus.com. 

SOURCE: TELUS Corporation

Shawn Hall
TELUS Media Relations
[phone]
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