Peace River's AGS Mechanical Contractors were just one of many who went and purchased donuts in support of Mighty Max Sych this past week (Photo: AGS Mechanical Contractors/ Facebook)

By Shane Clausing

Mighty Max

Peace River and Valleyview Tim Hortons raise $112,000 through Mighty Max donut drive

Jan 15, 2021 | 1:02 PM

After a week of selling donuts for Fairview’s Mighty Max Sych, the Tim Hortons locations in Valleyview and Peace River announced on Friday they combined to raise over $112,000 to go towards helping the family of the two-year-old to get him his Zolgensma treatment.

In total, between Peace River and Valleyview, the Tim Hortons locations sold 12,869 specially-made donuts between January 7 and 14, and according to Owner Gordon Drummond, they also got a special surprise from a generous resident.

“We generously got a $100,000 donation towards Max from an anonymous donor saying ‘we like what you guys do’. They were saying ‘we don’t want the donuts, but we just want to put the $100,000 towards Max’.

“That’s staggering. He had to clarify. We asked was if he saying $1,000 or $100,000?”

Drummond tells EverythingGP his stores launched the doughnut campaign after learning about Mighty Max’s story.

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“We’ve been monitoring it on Facebook and keeping a close eye on it and we were torn with the idea of if we should do something on it. Our Director of Operations from Valleyview phoned us up and said ‘look, we need to do these Max doughnuts’.

“From the time that she called us to the time we started selling the doughnuts was 48 hours.”

Mighty Max currently suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2 and the treatment to cure the disease costs $2.8 million. In Canada, Max needs the drug before he hits a specific weight.

Drummond added the campaign made it an easy way for people in the community to help.

“A lot of people wanted to help in a small way and how do you do that? You sell them a doughnut. Now they come and buy a doughnut and they’ve contributed to the GoFundMe and it doesn’t financially hurt them.”

With over $112,000 raised for Mighty Max, Drummond says this is just another example of how kind and giving the people in the Peace Region are.

“If I could physically hug everyone through the media I would do it. This is just brilliant. I love the Peace Country and the people, it’s just amazing.”

To date, over $900,000 has been raised for Mighty Max and his family his hoping to get some help from the Alberta Government.

EverythingGP reached out to the provincial government to see if they’ve made any decisions and received this response from an Alberta Health spokesperson.

“We are pleased that Zolgensma has received Health Canada approval and is another step closer to completing the drug review process in Canada. On behalf of the provinces and territories, the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance has been in discussions with the drug’s manufacturer about the possibility of providing the drug on a case-by-case basis until the health technology assessment and price negotiations are complete. We are committed to continuing these discussions and to providing access to children in Alberta who are eligible for this treatment. The number of children who meet the treatment criteria will be determined in the weeks ahead.”

You can donate to Mighty Max’s GoFundMe here.