Practice Philanthropy

ArtWorks for Cancer

Dr. Weinberg is passionate about art. He’s an artist himself, as is his wife, and they are avid collectors (especially of Canadian artists). He is also a former board member and chair of the Arts Advisory Committee of McMichael Art Gallery.

Dr. Weinberg believes art plays an important role in creating welcoming, soothing, and healing spaces for patients undergoing cancer treatment. This led him to launch ArtWorks for Cancer together with a team of like-minded and dedicated individuals.

Dr. Weinberg is the not-for-profit foundation’s president, and he and his all-volunteer team have each personally been touched by cancer in some way. They have worked tirelessly to collect and curate beautiful donated works of art to hang in oncology centres throughout Ontario.

Studies have shown that exposure to visual arts can bolster spirits, reduce stress, and calm anxieties for family members — and even contribute positively to patient health outcomes.

“Art transforms clinical areas into warm, hopeful and healing spaces,” Dr. Weinberg says. “It offers the patient an opportunity to escape from the immense pressures associated with cancer.”

Dr. Weinberg and the ArtWorks team have decorated the walls of their first oncology unit in Mississauga, at Trillium Health Network.

ArtWorks accepts art donations and works with hospitals to curate their spaces. If you’re interested in helping the foundation by donating great art so that they can find a good home for it, please visit ArtWorks for Cancer online.

Providing Help Overseas

For the first 14 years of his life, Dr. Michael Weinberg, a caring cosmetic plastic surgeon with Toronto and Mississauga offices, grew up in Zimbabwe, Africa. He has always maintained a strong attachment to his birthplace. Some years ago he decided it was his time to try to help his troubled homeland. He began looking for a project to help alleviate the terrible shortage of medical supplies and care in that impoverished nation. Together with his cousin Bert Amato he settled on a small rural hospital run by a Canadian salvation army physician, Dr. Paul Thistle, and they began attempting to send some donated medical equipment.

What started as a small grassroots organization, just the 2 cousins working together, steadily grew, and through their tireless lobbying and tremendous enthusiasm they managed to coopt family, friends and colleagues into helping. They gradually expanded their shipments of supplies many fold and their mandate grew. They eventually partnered with The Salvation Army and the team at their plastic surgery clinic in Toronto and Mississauga. The group is directly responsible for shipping many 40-foot containers, full to the brim with medical equipment such as infant incubators and ultrasound machines, much needed drugs like antibiotics and surgical supplies like sutures and dressings. In 2009 they shipped approximately $3,000,000 worth of supplies.

They have also taken on the hospital’s orphanage and school and have shipped shoes, clothes, books, toys and supplied salaries for nurses and teachers. The hospital services roughly 280,000 people and is responsible for 140,000 patient visits yearly. Thanks to the amazing efforts of everyone involved in this project the hospital is now well equipped to dispense it’s duties, with programs for neonatal and maternal health, out patient clinics, and community outreach programs.

Dr. Weinberg is enormously passionate about and proud of this organization’s achievements and is tremendously grateful to everyone who has donated time, supplies and funds to make it a success. If you would like to learn more about the Howard Hospital project and find out how you can help, contact Dr. Weinberg.