Calgary businessman inspired by Wellspring to help cancer patients

Inspiring Albertan: Randy O'Dell A Calgary businessman gives a financial boost to a group helping people battling cancer. Darrel Janz reports.

A Calgary businessman is ensuring people battling cancer have a special place to turn to for help and support.

Randy O’Dell was looking to give back to the community and his research into which organizations to support brought him to Wellspring Calgary.

The organization’s Carma House is located in the northwest community of Montgomery and provides much needed support to thousands of cancer patients, survivors and their families.

Wellspring Calgary says its northwest facility is bursting at the seams and O’Dell’s financial gift of four million dollars means it can buy land and build a second house in southeast Calgary.

O’Dell says a visit to Wellspring’s Carma House was all it took for him to see the good the organization does in the community and how well it’s operated.

“I know if I had cancer I would most certainly go there because everybody knows; everybody is up against the same thing you are,” says O’Dell.

Wellspring Calgary Executive Director Patti Morris says the organization needed a second location and was looking at a tract of land east of Deerfoot Trail near the South Health Campus and O’Dell’s financial boost  came at the perfect time.

“We had a plan in place but it felt like it would be many years away and Randy stepping in and hearing our plan and deciding that he wanted to be the person to take the lead has made just the most significant difference,” says Morris.

The south house should be completed in about three years and O’Dell has every confidence the facility will help the people who need it most.

“I’m very happy to do it,” says O’Dell. “Every day I get happier. I feel better. And meeting the people it's not a job to them, it's a way of life.”

Morris agrees saying thousands will find the help and support they need.

“It's going be our incredible privilege to be able to open those doors of the Randy O'Dell House and tell people the story of this incredible man,” says Morris.

For what his gift to Wellspring Calgary will mean to people battling cancer, Randy o”Dell is this week's Inspiring Albertan.

(With files from Darrel Janz)