One of the many Porch Portraits Hatter Bradley East took to raise funds for the Medicine Hat and District Health Foundation. -- SUBMITTED PHOTO
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
When Hatter Bradley East started his Porch Portrait Sessions earlier this year, he hoped to raise a couple hundred bucks for the Medicine Hat and District Health Foundation.
Now that he is finishing up the photography sessions, East has raised more than $2,000 that will be donated to the organization.
“In my mind I thought I’d maybe do $200,” he said. “With COVID-19 happening, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of donation amounts from people.
“The support I got from people was absolutely amazing.”
East did about 70 different sessions to raise more than $1,500 on his own. The other $500 came from RBC’s Random Acts of Canadian Program.
“Getting nominated for the program and getting $500 to donate was incredible,” he said. “When you start a project like this, you never even think of getting support from something like RBC, so it was really just humbling for me.”
East says a close family connection made him want to support health-care heroes during the global pandemic.
“My mom and sister have had cancer, my sister passed away sadly,” he said. “They have been helped by healthcare heroes so much, that this really struck home with me.
“My sister was such a giving person, I wanted to carry that on and honour her with this.”
East says it would be really hard to pick a favourite memory or single photo session from the fundraiser but thanked everyone for getting creative and having fun with the photos.
