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John MacDonald, a former school principal who retired from education and then took on roles such as physician recruiter and chair of the fundraising campaigns that built both Peterborough Regional Health Centre and the Balsillie Family YMCA, has died.
He was 82.
MacDonald died peacefully at home on New Year’s Eve.
He is survived by Stephanie, his wife of 35 years, and by daughters Gillian, Janine and Jennie, son Jeff Crowley and 11 grandchildren.
MacDonald was predeceased in 2020 by son Drew MacDonald.
“John was a kind, considerate man who lived every day based on his strong set of values,” wrote his friends David and Patricia Morton in a condolence posted on a Highland Park Funeral Centre page.
“He contributed so much to this community in so many ways and will be very much missed.”
John Harry MacDonald started his career with the Toronto Board of Education in 1964. He worked there over the next decade as a teacher and later an elementary school vice-principal.
In 1974 he took a principal’s job for the Peterborough County Board of Education, remaining in that role until 1988 when he became a board administrator in special education and staff development.
He worked at the board until 1997.
In 2001, after retiring from education, he started working part-time as a physician recruiter in Peterborough at a time of severe doctor shortage in the city and county.
Around then came the development of family health teams, where doctors, nurse practitioners and other clinicians such as social workers and nutritionists work together.
The model has been in place since and has been replicated across Ontario.
MacDonald remained in the physician recruitment role for 15 years, until 2016.
During those years he did other work: for example he was a division chair of the capital campaign to build Peterborough Regional Health Centre on Medical Drive in 2008 (which replaced the former Peterborough Civic Hospital which had been on the site and St. Joseph Hospital in East City; MacDonald once served as chair for the Civic Hospital).
He was also a lay minister at Westdale United Church for awhile, as well as executive administrator for the Peterborough Region Angel Network. He chaired Fleming College’s board of governors.
MacDonald was one of the longest-serving board members of the Peterborough YMCA, serving on the board for 19 years from 1996 to 2015.
That included two terms as board chair, plus he chaired the fundraising campaign that collected $9 million to build the Balsillie Family YMCA branch on Aylmer Street (which opened in 2007 to replace the historic downtown YMCA — now the Y Lofts).
MacDonald was credited by then-Peterborough YMCA president and CEO Bob Gallagher as having been key in recruiting Jim Balsillie, the head of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, as honorary chair of the campaign and a major donor (Balsillie gave $600,000).
After the Balsillie Family YMCA opened in 2007, MacDonald went on to become a national board director for YMCA Canada from 2008 to 2011.
Gallagher, who moved to Ottawa in 2016 to become president and CEO of the YMCA-YWCA of the National Capital Region, wrote in 2017 that MacDonald had been a “driving force” behind the amalgamation of the Peterborough YMCA with that of Belleville and Quinte West, a model that has been studied and copied nationwide.
“YMCAs across Canada are stronger due to John’s vision in leadership,” wrote Gallagher in a 2017 letter recommending him for the YMCA Canada Fellowship of Honour (the Y’s highest award, which MacDonald won in 2017).
Visitation for John MacDonald will take place Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Highland Park Funeral Centre on Bensfort Road in the southeast end of Peterborough.
A funeral is scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Westdale United Church at 1509 Sherbrooke St. in the west end of Peterborough.
Former principal became physician recruiter for Peterborough - St. Catharines Standard
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