Giving back Owners of coffee shops repaying rehab facility that is helping their grandson

C6

Tammy Scott-Wallace
Telegraph-Journal

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SUSSEX - Those awaiting a few chuckles will likely do a double-take when they see Sussex Tim Hortons listed as the major sponsor in their comedy show program.

The fundraiser, after all, is being held in the heart of Toronto.

While the show, Laughs For Possibility, has an obvious connection in Sussex native and The Rick Mercer Report writer Tim Steeves, it is not the funny man who convinced Sussex Tim Hortons owners to hand over sponsorship funds.

It is Jim and Chris Andrew's grandson Eric and a traumatic episode he experienced in July that drew them to the cause.

From his Sussex business, Jim talked about the vacation that shook his tight-knit family to the core. He said his daughter Jodi and her husband, Lloyd Ravn, who grew up in the Millbrook area, near Sussex, had welcomed a new baby and along with three-year-old Eric were going to spend much of their summer vacationing at her parents' cottage on Prince Edward Island.

Eric had always undergone treatment from their home base of Toronto for development delays but his condition took a serious turn about two weeks into their leisure time on P.E.I.

Jim said the family had all gathered and were having the time of their lives. The kids were playing in a tent set up in the front yard of the cottage and the bonfire was roaring.

When it was time for the children's fun to end for the night, Eric reacted with tears and was difficult to settle down for sleep, Jim explained. When he went to check on the quiet toddler a little later, it was a sight he would not soon forget.

"He was just lying there - it's like he was seeing right through me," Jim said. "We thought he was just very upset about having to go to bed, but later we found out he was having a major stroke.

"I knew immediately when I saw him something was very wrong. We didn't wait for an ambulance - we bundled him up and rushed him to Charlottetown."

After a week of having his health stabilized at the Charlottetown hospital, Eric was airlifted to the IWK in Halifax, where tests confirmed the unexplained stroke. From there he was sent on to the Bloorview Kids Rehab in Toronto, where he continues to undergo extensive speech, occupational and physiotherapy to restore his abilities.

"It was going to be a summer to remember," Jim said. "It was a summer to remember, all right. It has been a huge, huge ordeal for everyone."

Eric's father, Lloyd, an amateur comedian himself, dreamed up the idea for a comedy showcase to raise funds for the Bloorview Kids Rehab. When he was in Sussex for Christmas, he shared with his in-laws details of the show and the confirmed performers.

"He said all he had left to do was secure a major sponsor and Chris said, 'You've got one.'

"That just shows how big we are," Jim joked of his two Sussex-based coffee shops.

"It's basically Sussex takes Toronto," Lloyd said.

Lloyd said his son has been making amazing progress, and that he owes it to the Toronto rehab facility. In an attempt to give back to Bloorview, he organized the comedy show to be held tonight at Absolute Comedy Club on Yonge Street in Toronto.

Laughs for Possibility will feature many of Canada's best stand-up comedians, including Steeves, who has also appeared at Just for Laughs and the Halifax Comedy Festival.

Lloyd will also perform.