Someone will pay $175,000 to lunch with B.C. business leader Jimmy Pattison, who is helping Surrey Hospitals Foundation raise funds.
For that amount, the organization’s month-long “Lunch With a Leader” online charity auction closed Nov. 30 with an anonymous bid for the “exclusive private lunch” with Pattison.
With minimum bids set at $25,000, the auction raised money to upgrade Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre in Surrey.
The winning bidder will lunch with Pattison and guests “at a location in Vancouver to be determined by Mr. Pattison and the successful bidder,” according to a news release in early November.
The auction website (lunchwithjp.com) involved a series of “qualifying questions” during the bidding process.
Pattison’s charity lunch is inspired by similar events hosted by American business tycoon Warren Buffett.
In September, Pattison pledged $4 million in matching donations to help Surrey Hospitals Foundation’s fundraising goal of $8 million for the purchase of “critical” diagnostic medical equipment for the hospital centre.
Opened in 2011, the 188,000-square-foot Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre was built at a cost of $237 million, “to relieve pressure on the health-care system by consolidating the services that don’t require an overnight stay at SMH, into one stand-alone facility.”
tom.zillich@surreynowleader.com
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