OUR BEGINNINGS

In the beginning:  Alido Di Iorio, who was re-diagnosed with brain cancer in 1997, founded the vision for Gitche M'Qua Centre. Alido's living and dying was a testimony that healing could happen at any moment. During his journey he used a wide variety of holistic therapies that supported his deep commitment to healing himself. This transformation led him to his vision of building a country retreat centre as a place where community could seek healing, nourishment, and inner spiritual values through connecting to the land. His vision remains the basis of our work, and his death provided us with another legacy we hold in our hearts today.

Alido died in 1998, surrounded by prayers and loving community.  His death revealed how one man's commitment to healing himself, and through the help of many, that death could indeed be a healing one.  Today, his wife, Angela, together with her new partner, Andrew, continue his legacy.

Along the way:  Our starting point was creating a charitable organization with a city-based centre in our home, where we continue to provide opportunities for study and enrichment. As a community of lay and professionals in the healthcare/healing professions, we developed programs and invited teachers which focused on understanding compassionate care of the dying,  meditation and contemplation to inform our work, and self-care as a basis for healthy care-giving.

Today: We currently concentrate in three major areas:  End-of-Life Care Training Program and Education around Death and Dying, Meditation and Contemplative Studies, and Healing Arts.  By incorporating new capacities to establish core funding and fundraising, like this Alido Di Iorio Golf Tournament, we look forward to expanding our services and training to reach the ever-expanding needs of an aging population.

The Future: Without your excitement and participation, Alido's dream remains only a thought.  Through your support of this tournament, his dream becomes a reality, knowing that inevitably each of us will face illness and death, and through his legacy we can find peace, acceptance and even healing, in our living and dying.

OUR VISION

Gitche M'Qua Centre for Healing and Dying is a charitable organization that brings awareness and compassion to exploring our relationship to how we are living and dying.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to provide education, i.e. lectures, retreats and workshops, as well as establishing training and counselling for individuals and their communities facing illness or death. Our End-of-Life program was designed to train lay and professionals working with the dying, and our other programs enhance this work by offering tools to support our well being.

GMC is about understanding healing and dying. It is looking at the simple truth that everyone dies, and then asking how can we help our loved ones die peacefully. Since none of us escapes death, we believe it is important to prepare ourselves to assist one another at this important juncture of life.  Dying can, we have learned, have a quality of healing, as we accept that curing an illness is not always possible. Healing fosters the qualities of acceptance, understanding, and love, as we make sense of our how we are living or how we are dying.