BCBusiness

September 2019 - Women's Work

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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S P E C I A L F E A T U R E C R E A T E A L E G A C Y Many Ways to Give Back From one-time donations to targeting societal problems, these charitable foundations find innovative ways to help you make an impact C lasina van Bemmel lives by the statement, "You never know what's possible until you go beyond it to the impossible." It led her to establish the Compassion in Action Fund at Vancouver Foundation, which supports the most vulnerable women and children from urban centres in B.C. Van Bemmel, 74, says of the Fund, "It's about me using my own experiences to provide others with the help to meet life's basic needs." Van Bemmel's own history, which involves a heartbreaking tale of child abuse, made her a champion for women who are fleeing domestic abuse and struggling to overcome other issues. "How can you even start to fight without having the basics like food, safety, and shelter?" she asks. At 16, van Bemmel escaped from an abusive family life in the Netherlands and became a nanny in England, Germany, Switzerland and France. She moved to Vancouver in 1975 and started what would become The Vancouver Trolley Company. She's accomplished a lot in her professional life, but none of it makes her so proud as the Compassion in Action Fund. Van Bemmel has supported numerous charities, but now she believes it's time to take more of a back seat, "so that when I am gone the Fund can continue to assist women." Today, van Bemmel says of her past, "Having those experiences made me fearless. They Ronald McDonald House has accommodated 10,000 families in just five years PHOTO COUR T ESY continued on pg. 57

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