A special thank you to CanLyme volunteers, Sue and Gary McDougall
From videography, to Lyme prevention education and tick removal kit fulfillment — they’ve done it all.
Thank you Sue and Gary McDougall for your years of hard work and service to the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation! This remarkable pair of volunteers have worked diligently, sending out tick removal kits and volunteering for many advocacy meetings and events for over 10 years.
Being friends with Jim Wilson, Sue and Gary started out with their local Farmers Market, providing CanLyme information on ticks and Lyme disease and answering questions in Penticton, BC. Sue then suggested adding a CanLyme information booth at the annual Rock Creek Fall Fair in 2014, where she and Gary then volunteered annually for the next six years. Jim was impressed that the small country fair garnered an attendance of over 15,000 people in the two days it ran each year.
It was at this fair that Gary showed Jim his demonstration with a balloon of how to properly remove a tick with tweezers. Jim said it was the best demonstration that he had seen, and the video of this demonstration is still on the CanLyme website.
Lyme disease awareness
Gary helped immensely with filming many of the presentations that Jim gave, the first being Jim’s speech at the Penticton Museum’s “Brown Bag” speaker presentation in March of 2013. This was the highest attended Brown Bag presentation with standing room only and over 120 people in attendance.
They ran Lyme Sucks Challenges out of their house in January 2015 with the Penticton and Area Lyme Group, and then helped the Penticton RCMP as well as the Fire Department and Ambulance Service do the challenge in April, and then the City Council in May! Gary produced videos to promote Lyme awareness and research through donations from the challenge.
In 2016, not long after Sue attended the three day event in Ottawa concerning Bill C-442 (Federal Framework on Lyme Disease Act), Sue had a phone call with Jim asking if they could help him with mailing out the tick removal kits, to which they agreed. They met with Jim at a restaurant where he explained how to package the tick removal kits into big and small envelopes for singles, doubles, triples, and kits of four or more. Sue and Gary started with smaller orders while Jim handled the bulk orders, but eventually Sue and Gary took over the bulk orders, shipping hundreds of tick removal kits all across Canada.
Sue and Gary are extraordinary volunteers whose commitment to the CanLyme Team reminds us that the heart and soul of CanLyme are our volunteers.
