During the height of the pandemic, Megan Roberts was battling stage four cancer. Her husband, Craig, wanted to do something special for her 44th birthday, on December 16.
Megan Roberts was a psychiatrist, who spent most of her career on the frontlines in the hospital emergency, providing mental health medical attention to those in need.
To surprise Megan, Craig came up with the Mega Flamingo Rally. The Rally was a fundraiser for CHV and when you donated to CHV, you were given a pink flamingo to go place on the Roberts’ lawn while Megan was out.
Megan’s sister, Carolyn, said, “We could not involve Megan in the decision to support Covenant House Vancouver, because we wanted it all to be a surprise, but we all know her well enough that we knew Covenant House was the perfect fit for Meg. She has dedicated most of her life to mental health as a psychiatrist. Through this work she has also spent a great deal of time working with troubled youth and adults that lacked the appropriate resources back when they were younger to get the help that they needed.”
Supporters and donors made up of friends and family picked up their flamingos and drove to Meg’s house on December 16th to drop them off, many with personal messages attached.
Neighbours and people passing by wanted to know what was going on and once they found out that it was a fundraiser for Covenant House in honour of Megan, they asked how they could donate.
Megan was amazed at the outpouring of love and support, and the Rally raised $66,323 — CHV’s largest DIY fundraiser to date.
Sadly, Megan passed in June of 2021. Since the Rally, the Roberts’ two daughters volunteered at CHV in our GIK department.
In 2022, Craig and executives from Madison Group and Glacier Media (where Craig works) attended a CHV open house and saw the new facility, which Craig said was “very moving.”
“It was incredible to hear these stories,” Craig continued, “we walked out of there saying ‘we’ve got to do this.'”
Craig decided to organize a Mega Flamingo Reboot and the people from Madison Group became the triple match partners for this event.
The event raised an amazing $38,309, which was triple matched for a grand total of $114, 927!
We would like to thank Craig, his daughters, and the Madison Group for enabling us to provide critical support for youth including housing, food, clothing, and complex care supports, like counselling and access to social workers.