Hillary’s Hope for Hunger raises thousands for food bank

By Barbara Rayner, Reporter

Warning: This story contains a discussion about suicide

St. George – For the past six years Patty Borthwick, with the help of volunteers, has organized an annual food drive for the St. George Food Bank, in memory of her daughter Hillary Hooper.

Hillary’s Hope for Hunger, which was held in St. George Saturday, is held each April on the Saturday closest to her daughter’s birthday which was April 27. She would have been 33 this year.

Figures as of Saturday evening showed the food drive raised $10,975 in cash and gift cards as well as taking in more than 1,011 pounds of food which doesn’t include all the donations received by the food bank itself prior to the event.

“What a great day. The community – as usual – came through. Even Mother Nature cooperated,” said Borthwick, who said this wouldn’t be possible without the help of the community and their continued generosity year after year.

She thanked all the volunteers including Eastern Charlotte Fire and Rescue members who lugged the food and helped set up the parking area as well as Adam Hatt for loaning his trailer to hold the food.

Borthwick said Hillary loved to knit and would make hats and scarves to put in the Community Pantry but she would often call her mother concerned because there was little or no food in there which is why she came up with the idea of the food drive to honour her daughter’s memory.

“I thought what can I do good in her memory and having the food drive helps a lot of people. To date we have raised over $125,000 in cash and there are also food donations. We have the same volunteers every year and Hillary’s girl friends come and help,” she said as this year’s event got under way.

Even before the Saturday drive on Main Street, she said they had a table set up at the Eastern Charlotte Night Market Friday where a number of donations were dropped off.

Since Hillary’s death in December 2020, Borthwick has fought hard to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness and eventually won her battle to have an inquest into Hillary’s death at the Saint John Regional Hospital (SJRH).

“Under what is known as Hillary’s Law, if someone dies by suicide in a provincially owned institution there is automatically an inquest so no family has to put up with the fight we went through,” she said. “Come hell or high water I was getting my answers.”

Hillary went into SJRH Nov. 13 2020 and, with a change in her medications and a new psychiatrist, she told her mother December 9 this was the best she had felt in years while talking to her on the phone at 9 p.m.

“She said can you get my Christmas ornaments ready because she thought she was coming home. In fact, we had already decorated her house but I never let on. She texted with her boyfriend until 10:37 p.m. and at 11 p.m. they couldn’t get her door open,” Borthwick said. 

Hillary stayed on life support for a week but Borthwick said they were told by numerous specialists she had an anoxic brain injury (when the brain is deprived of all oxygen for four or more minutes) and would not be able to come back from that so she made the decision to take her daughter off life support. 

Hillary was also an organ donor and, although making that decision was very painful, Borthwick said she thought this was the best thing they could do.

“For three years we didn’t know how she died. All we knew was she had gone into the bathroom and somehow managed to hang herself. She was supposed to be on 15 minute checks but we found out later they put her on one hour checks.”

Although she fought diligently for the inquest, which was held in March 2023, she said it was one of the hardest things she has ever done.

“You know you want the answers but you are not prepared to hear them,” she said. “They said they worked on her for 45 minutes and you can visualize that. The inquest lasted three days and her girlfriends went with us”.

Once the inquest was over and the jury came back with 15 recommendations, Borthwick said she could finally have a burial for her daughter that August because she wouldn’t do that until she had all the answers.

There is now a white heart on the grass in front of the St. George post office and she said the goal behind Operation White Heart is to get people talking about suicide and remove the stigma of mental illness.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. Help is available 24/7. 

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