Legacy

Dr. Don Rix and his wife Eleanor grew up in London, Ontario. 

Eleanor and her family moved to Vancouver when she was in high school, and she went on to graduate from the University of British Columbia and become an elementary school teacher. Don moved to Vancouver to do his Residency at Vancouver General Hospital after finishing medical school at the University of Western Ontario. They fell in love, loved life on the coast, and never looked back. 

After they were married, Eleanor continued teaching, and Don started Family Practice. He often recalled a story from this time when he went out into the neighborhood to collect for the United Way. He was struck by the generous amount given by small family businesses, and the minimal, or zero amount donated by successful businesses. It was then he learned the importance of giving back to the community, be it financially, through one’s expertise, or time. At that time Don started spending his spare time volunteering by treating patients in the Downtown Eastside. 

After a few years in Family Practice, Don went back to school and became a Pathologist. While working at VGH, he saw a need for community-based laboratory testing. At the time, all lab work was done in hospitals which was no longer feasible with the growing population, so he and another Pathologist started a private laboratory.  Eleanor helped to clean the lab and did the accounting, in addition to her full-time teaching position. Soon demand grew, and Don bought out his partner and expanded his lab chain throughout the province, then known as Metro McNair Clinical Laboratories.  It was, and is, the largest private medical laboratory in British Columbia.  Don sold the labs in 2006 which you now know today as LifeLabs. 

The concept of giving back to the community stuck with Don and Eleanor, and in the 1970’s they started the modest “Rix Family Foundation”.  During this time, their daughter, Laurie was born. Eleanor wanted to be with her daughter during the day, so she switched to adult education in the evenings and taught adult literacy courses. 

The Foundation gradually grew to become a major donor to the BC Cancer Foundation and BC Children’s Hospital, as well as made many smaller donations to charities such as the Vancouver Food Bank, Salvation Army, PADS, SPCA and the Arts. Both Don and Eleanor strongly believed in education and wanted to enable those who were in financial need a way to obtain it.

They set up bursaries at their Alma Maters, as well as Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, University of Northern British Columbia, and the BC Institute of Technology. 

After Eleanor passed away in 2007, Don created a Chair in Rural Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in her name. An important part of the Chair’s work is focusing on Indigenous education. 

Don served on numerous Boards throughout his life, including Canucks Place for Kids, BC Childrens’ Hospital, the Vancouver Board of Trade, Genome BC, The Vancouver Art Gallery, the VSO, and the YWCA, to name a few. He also provided start-up funds to many small biotech companies. 

Don passed away in late 2009 from a rare cancer.  However, throughout his cancer journey, he took a forward-looking approach and worked with BC Cancer to be the first person in the world to have his tumor genetically sequenced.   Nowhere else in North America would take the bold first step to do so. It both improved and prolonged his life. It’s now known as the Personalized Onco Genomics Program (POG), which has implemented treatments in a variety of rare and aggressive cancers. 

After Don’s death their daughter, Laurie took over running the Foundation.  She shifted the focus slightly to health education and research, women, children and animals. 

Laurie was married to the renowned BC Sportscaster Neil Macrae for many years until his death in 2017 from cancer.  He had both breast and prostate cancer due to the inherited genetic BRCA gene which can cause multiple cancers.  In his memory, Laurie set up the Neil Macrae Summer Camp Program, partnering with the CKNW Kid’s Fund to deliver summer camp programs for kids with disabilities. She also initiated a research fund in his name at the BC Cancer Foundation for male breast cancer. 

The Rix Family Foundation was pleased to donate the largest gift in history to the BC Cancer Foundation for Women’s Breast Cancer research in the province: $5 million dollars. 

The Foundation has expanded its reach beyond Canada with the Two Worlds Collaboration, to India and more recently Asia, for Palliative Care and early oral cancer detection. 

Laurie is pleased to now be working with two additional Directors, Frances Lasser and Karen Fraser. Together they are a strong team who advocate greatly for health research, women, children, and animals.