Funds pour in for Olivia the Brave Park

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This article was published 05/04/2024 (890 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A fundraiser aimed at increasing the budget for a park in the Brookwood area being developed in honour of a girl who loved it before her death has already raised more than $10,000.

Olivia the Brave Park at the corner of Plateau and Goldenrod drives was named after Olivia Baessler, who died at the age of four in 2020 after battling congenital issues relating to her heart and esophagus.

At a meeting at Linden Lanes School last week, city staff told residents that this year’s budget set aside $100,000 for the park and they could fundraise if they wanted to make it bigger and add more features.

However, if residents wanted to get the park built this year, they must raise the additional funds by April 19.

Organizer Amber White told the Sun this week that on top of the more than $10,000 that has already been raised, local philanthropists Gord and Diane Peters have offered to match all donations up to a $50,000 maximum.

“It’s been exciting and overwhelming,” said White, who owns Anytime Fitness in Brandon. “It’s the quickest fundraiser that I think I’ve ever helped put together.”

White said the Baesslers are family friends. She wanted to help with the fundraiser both in Olivia’s honour and to provide a safe, accessible playground so that kids and families in the area don’t have to cross 34th Street to get to a park with more amenities.

With enough donations, White said the city will be able to build a play area almost double the size it was initially planning. One of those added features would be a swing set, something Olivia loved to play on.

Over the Easter long weekend, White said, volunteers helped deliver flyers to every household in the Brookwood area. There has also been work to organize the fundraiser on the neighbourhood’s private Facebook page.

Funds can be given to the campaign either by calling White at 204-730-0568, or sending an etransfer to oliviathebravepark@gmail.com.

The campaign is offering to have plaques placed at the park for everyone who donates more than $1,000. On top of that, the City of Brandon has confirmed that it will issue tax receipts for donors. To receive a receipt, donors must send White their name, address, phone number and email to the campaign email address or include it in the information section for an etransfer.

Receipts will be issued after the close of the fundraising campaign.

The hope is that the park will be open by September and a grand opening ceremony held in October.

Reached by phone on Thursday, Olivia’s mother, Crystal Baessler, said the effort to honour her daughter was “super overwhelming.”

“When we moved into that area, I was pregnant with Olivia,” she said.

“It was overwhelming and appreciated and loving and kind. I feel it shows community spirit, it shows how much the people around you care. It also shows a lot about her as well, because she was an old soul. Every time we’ve done fundraising for hospitals and for anything we’ve done in the last three years since she passed, things just pour in without people even knowing her.”

Crystal said Olivia could spend hours on the lone swing that’s currently at the park and that adding a swing set would be a fitting tribute.

Ideally, she said, there would be some green elements at the park in honour of Olivia’s favourite colour as well as the sun holding a green heart logo used in conjunction with fundraisers done in her name.

“Every time we left that park at nighttime, she’d be pedalling her bike crying all the way home,” she said.

A statue of Olivia at the park depicts her on her tricycle.

Olivia was born six weeks premature with esophageal atresia, meaning her esophagus was not attached to her stomach. That required her to go under surgery 30 minutes after being born.

She was also born with a heart defect and had to travel to Edmonton for open heart surgery. Olivia ended up being the first person in Canada and 13th in the world to receive a surgery using magnets to connect her esophagus to her stomach.

That surgery had yet to be approved in Canada and initially, Olivia’s doctor said it probably wouldn’t be available for another decade. But eventually, he was able to get approval and have doctors brought in from the United States to perform the procedure.

Since then, Crystal said she’s spoken to other parents whose kids were undergoing the same surgery.

“She’s a groundbreaker to bring it for other kids here to Canada,” she said. “If there had to be a great part of this story, she’s done that for other children.”

On top of the park, money has been raised in Olivia’s name for the Brandon Regional Health Centre to help acquire machines that were unavailable, forcing the family to go to Winnipeg for some tests and procedures. Other funds are being collected to help pay for medical school scholarships.

One fundraiser in Olivia’s name was through the brother and wife of her father John. They run a winery in B.C.’s Okanagan region.

On the day of Olivia’s death, they filled a barrel with Syrah grapes that had been picked and after some aging, produced 200 bottles of a special wine. All the proceeds from sales go toward the Brandon Regional Health Centre Foundation.

By phone from Las Vegas, Diane Peters said she and her husband are family friends and were blessed to be part of Olivia’s life.

“When we read in the paper that the city had put funds aside to help improve parks in Brandon and hers being one of them, we really wanted to be a part of it,” she said.

“It’s just another testament to Olivia’s strength, her tenacity. She was just a brave little girl, so I believe that her community are taking another page from her book on being kind and good to each other.”

After connecting with White about the fundraiser, Peters offered to match donations to help provide an incentive to prospective donors.

Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7), whose ward includes Brookwood, said Thursday that the effort being put in by his constituents in such a short amount of time is an excellent example for what could be accomplished in other neighbourhoods.

“With the two different groups, the city contributing some, residents doing some, they can really get that Taj Mahal, so to speak, as opposed to just a basic play structure,” Berry said.

“I think we need to see more of that in the city because things are so expensive these days. When you talk about a $100,000 play structure, it’s a nice little play structure, but it’s not what people envision.”

With all the efforts done in Olivia’s name, Crystal said she and John don’t know how they can possibly thank everyone involved enough.

“Our hearts couldn’t be any more full,” she said. “For something so tragic, there’s been so much good.”

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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