Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 11, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba +, Operation Excellence HSC Foundation Together, we can end diagnostic and surgical wait times at HSC "I came to HSC because there is an exciting push here to improve patient care and decrease wait times. The state-of-the-art technology that we have acquired-funded by the HSC Foundation-is improving the lives of patients. Your ongoing support of Operation Excellence is making a difference." - Dr. Alysa Almojue/a, Neurosurgeon, HSC Winnipeg Your support will help HSC innovate, excel, and deliver tomorrow's health care-today. Learn more and donate at OperationExcellence.ca or call 204-515-5612 or toll-free at 1-800-679-8493. + FOUNDATION • One & two bedroom suites • Weekly housekeeping • Continental Breakfast, Dinner • Planned activities • In-suite washer & dryer • Guest Suite • Private Dining Room • Shuttle bus • Daily security check • Spacious suites with balconies • Full kitchen with fridge, stove and microwave One bedrooms available 45 Boulton Bay Conveniently located at the end of Boulton Bay, south of Grant Ave. in River Heights. ASK US ABOUT OUR MOVE-IN INCENTIVES! 50% OFF Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for our latest collections. chestntb chesnutlaneboutique 568 Academy Rd. | 204-487-1681 Winter Sale Starts Saturday, January 11, 2024 Shop 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Sale of select merchandise All sales final WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● A7 NEWS I FRONT AND CENTRE SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2025 FORGIVENESS ● FROM A4 Candace House achieved charitable status in 2013, growing from a grassroots project to an independent organization and then into an incor- porated one. In the spring of 2017, a home was found a block away from the Law Courts building on Kennedy Street. And they took over an adjacent suite in 2023, doubling capacity. “When we opened in 2018, Candace House was a place families could come while they were go- ing through court proceedings,” Hildebrand says. Now in its seventh year of operation, Candace House has supported more than 2,000 people in over 200 families and provided in excess of 1,500 hours of court accompaniment. “We’ve really expanded what we do,” Hildeb- rand says. “We work quite closely with police and Crown attorneys, connecting with families shortly after a homicide has happened.” The space allows families to go at their own pace, provides culturally informed support and someone to walk alongside family members to court dates, offering emotional support and comfort. “There are a lot of complex emotions and for- giveness is one of them,” Hildebrand says. “It’s not a destination. It’s a journey. It’s a choice that has to be made every day.” She says Candace House is now seeing some of the people who were supported years ago returning. “A lot of the families we first started to work with, now it’s getting to a point where corrections and parole board hearings are becoming more common with people who were sentenced when we were first opening,” she says. “Now, we are providing spaces to help fami- lies understand that system. Some families have come to Candace House to attend parole board hearings virtually.” ● ● ● Forgiveness was something Dana Boyer never thought possible. It wasn’t until Dec. 21, 2021 — his first and only time at Candace House — that it became a reality. “It was a safe haven in a time of turmoil, cha- os,” Boyer says. “It kept me grounded with family that was there, close by. “And without them, I wasn’t ready for the for- giveness that would come.” Seven hundred and eighty-two days earlier — Oct. 25, 2019 — his son Ethan was killed on his way to class at the U of M. A semi-trailer driven by 28-year-old Samuel Maendel plowed into the back of Ethan’s Honda Accord, crushing it between another semi that had slowed after a truck pulling a 10-foot trailer had pulled out from Brady Road onto the Perime- ter, partially blocking a lane. Ethan was 19. Maendel pleaded guilty to one count of careless driving causing death under the Highway Traffic Act. In a sentence jointly recommended by the Crown and defence, he was fined $2,000 and pro- hibited from driving for two years. When Boyer woke up on the morning of Maendel’s sentencing hearing, forgiveness wasn’t on his mind. But time spent at Candace House before heading into the courtroom centred him. He was with his brother and sister, the two people he credited with keeping his head on straight. He says support from the people at Candace House helped him handle the intimidation of entering a courtroom for the first time, even as his wife Sue, a longtime Winnipeg Police Service officer, had been through similar doors many times. “It helped me to feel secure and not threat- ened,” Boyer says. “It helped me to hear.” During the hearing, Boyer heard an apology from Maendel for the first time. “I felt for him … he was just as busted up as we were,” Boyer says. Not only did Boyer forgive him. His son Reid also did. Reid, who had struggled — and still does — with addiction, walked out of a Zoom hearing weeks earlier when the family learned the Crown and defence counsel had arrived at a plea deal. Reid and Maendel shook hands in a face-to-face meeting after the verdict. Boyer genuinely won- ders how Maendel is doing. “I hope he’s OK,” he says, adding he’d be open to speaking with the man. “I really hope he’s squared himself away, that he’s not wasting away. The demons are always there. “There is no way to get to that point of saying, ‘I forgive you,’ and shaking his hand and saying, ‘Please, forgive yourself,’ if you, yourself, aren’t in a good place.” Just as forgiveness sustained Cliff and Wilma in the years after Candace’s death, it did so for the Boyers. “Without seeing the example they set, I don’t know we’re at the place we are together today without Cliff and Wilma and Candace House,” Boyer says. “We wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t be. It would have consumed me. “They’re amazing people.” scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Sue Zuk-Boyer (left) and Dana Boyer, who received support from Candace House after their son’s death in 2019. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Candace House executive director Cecilly Hildebrand ;