About Us

For more than 60 years, our volunteers and donors have helped us fulfill our mission:

  • Empower Canadians to make positive changes and prevent disease
  • Save lives at the moment a health emergency strikes
  • Promote recovery, where and when it’s needed

That hasn't changed. We need people like you. When you raise funds, volunteer or donate, you help ensure life-saving research continues. Read more about our history.

In communities from coast to coast, volunteers and donors are working towards two important goals that will affect families:

  • By 2020, significantly improve the health of Canadians by decreasing their risk factors for heart disease and stroke by 10%
  • By 2020, reduce Canadians' rate of death from heart disease and stroke by 25%

Your help will get us there.

History of the Heart & Stroke Canvass

The Heart & Stroke canvassing campaign began in 1958 when the Foundation, led by Dr. Wilfred Bigelow, committed to raise $600,000 to fund heart research. In Ontario, volunteers launched a modest door-to-door campaign to raise a provincial goal of $250,000. By the end of the campaign, they had exceeded goal and raised $320,000.

In 1962, the canvass — named the “Heart Sunday Canvass” — was expanded to include additional cities. Canvassers consisted primarily of Air Cadet Squadrons, Ladies’ Auxiliary and Canadian Legion branches and medical students from the University of Toronto.

Today, the canvass is a national, community-based fundraising campaign. The success of this program depends on its 90,000 volunteers who connect with their neighbours and online networks with important information and personal stories, and then collect donations for lifesaving research.

See how our volunteers and the dollars they fundraise make a difference.