Second Annual Benefit for the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation, presented by Elevator Music and Promotions, Thursday, June 23 at Vancouver’s Studio Records. Featured bands include Anything But, Saints and Sinners and The Killing Floor Blues Band. Doors: 8 p.m. Tickets: $15.
North Vancouver’s Ben Abel and wife Lindsay Davidson’s daughter Charlotte spent the first two months of her life in the Royal Columbian Hospital neonatal intensive care unit after being born prematurely in March 2013.
Having a smooth pregnancy, it was during a routine 30-week check-up that Davidson’s doctor realized something was wrong, eventually leading to a diagnosis of preeclampsia and an emergency caesarean section at Royal Columbian, a high-risk maternity centre. Baby Charlotte was born at 31 weeks and five days, weighing two pounds, eight ounces.
Grateful for the care their daughter received, the Upper Lonsdale couple is pleased to report Charlotte is now three years old and doing well.
“She’s really thriving and really healthy and happy and enjoying daycare and learning how to swim and doing all those types of things. Things are working out really well for us now. It was a stressful time at the time of the birth, but things have really turned themselves around,” says Abel.
Interested in giving back, the family is presenting an upcoming benefit concert for the Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation in support of premature newborns and their families. According to the foundation, the New Westminster hospital provides specialized care for cardiac services, trauma, neurosciences, high risk maternity and neonatal intensive care for some of the most seriously ill and injured people from across the province.
“The idea now is to try to give back to the foundation and generate awareness on multiple levels. One, about what happens in these situations when you have premature children and also to make people aware of the things and types of support that are out there for them when they’re in that situation with a premature child,” says Abel.
The benefit is being organized by Abel’s company, Elevator Music and Promotions, at Vancouver’s Studio Records, Thursday, June 23. Abel called on his peers in the local music industry to lend their support and the concert is featuring performances by three Vancouver-based bands: Anything But; Saints and Sinners; and The Killing Floor Blues Band, which Abel is a member of, serving as singer, guitar player and songwriter.
This is the second benefit Abel has organized and last year’s inaugural edition raised more $800 for the foundation.
“I think it’s really important to give back and recognize what the hospital did for us and our daughter,” he says.
The circumstances surrounding Charlotte’s birth were traumatic for their family, and so organizing the annual event is helping him to heal.
“It gets easier every year to do it and it gets easier to come back and look at those memories and those experiences and realize and understand why what happened, happened,” he says.
When asked if Charlotte is following in her father’s footsteps and displaying some signs of an aptitude for music, Abel says most definitely yes.
“She kind of doesn’t have a choice. My wife and I are both into music, we’re both creative people. She clearly at this point has the gift for it, it’s always been around her and we’ve encouraged her to pursue that,” he says.
