Fitness for Hospice - What is it?


Fitness for Hospice stands for a series of fitness related events that happen throughout the year that helps raise money for The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County Inc. The community-wide scope of these events creates partnerships between the community and The Hospice, generating feelings of goodwill and accomplishment with the participants and our sponsors. The involvement with public and private fitness facilities and enthusiastic corporate sponsors creates an atmosphere of excitement and this bond between the community and Hospice is what makes Fitness for Hospice successful. 

The evolution of Fitness for Hospice


We at Hospice arrived at this name to identify under one logo all fitness related events that have throughout the years have helped to support The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County Inc. In 1980, Jane Boyd from the Hospice approached myself and members of Maple Leaf Racquet Club to help raise funds for a new charity starting up in Essex County called The Hospice of Windsor. This new charity was planning on providing palliative care to people in our community who had come down with life threatening illnesses at no charge. From this first contact the racquetball community and other fitness clubs started to run racquet tournaments and raise funds for the Hospice. In the early 80’s we used the name Racquets for Hospice to identify these fun raising efforts. As we moved on over time and racquet sports started to wane, area clubs and community centers started to come up with other fund raising activities. Events such as, Skate-A-Thons, Aerobathons, and the emergence of two events that are still a part of Fitness for Hospice and they are The Running Factory’s 5KM Spring Thaw, and Windsor St. Clair Rotary Clubs, Kids of Steel Triathlon. I will say that the cornerstone of all these events well into the 90’s was our annual National Sports racquetball tournament held each year in Tecumseh. As we moved on into the early and mid 90’s London Life became our corporate sponsor of all these events. Through this new partnership the focus started to change from fundraiser at different clubs in the wither months to events throughout the year. 

Next Phase


Two new events where created that to this day remain as ongoing success’s each year. These events are the Tim Hortons Triathlon weekend and London Life’s Freedom 55’s, Hockey for Hospice. With the support from London Life and their staff they came up with the idea of hosting an annual Christmas hockey tournament for kids playing on house league teams. The same thing also happened as the triathlon committee members came up with the idea to take over the Windsor Auto-Man triathlon and creating a weekend of triathlons for both kids and adults and that concept has also proved to be highly successful. While Freedom 55’s, Hockey for Hospice raises the most money each year $75,000+, both the Tim Hortons Triathlon and Subways Cardio Challenge continue to fulfill their mandate and that is to make people aware of The Hospice and to help Hospice raise money to be able to provide services to our community free of charge. 

The journey and struggle continues each year to provide these services, but with the continued commitment from our community we will succeed in our support of the Essex County community.