About Gifts from the Hardt

Dr. Susan Hardt has been actively engaged in charity and volunteer work for most of her life. Values, including charitable contribution were instilled from a very young age for this Montreal native, and considered integral to a life rich in rewarding experience. As an active advocate for life-enriching strategies, Dr Hardt with clear purpose has provided support, care and opportunity both locally and internationally.

The desire, as well as the outcome, is a sense of being deeply rooted and connected with her community. As Dr. Hardt became gradually and personally aware of local and global issues throughout her life journey, she has assisted and donated to her local charitable community organizations and woman’s shelters on an ongoing basis as well as through world-wide projects and donation drives. Initially, various charitable projects and funding, as well as animal care and shelters were the primary forums utilized in connecting her to her community. Her charitable involvement ranges from opportunities such as supervising within the Big Bother and Big Sister organization (Centraide) to, in more recent years, assisting victims of violence, in her community, through Victim Services of Peel in Ontario. Throughout her formative and academic years, various opportunities of assistance and service arose including the development and execution of the Adult and Pediatric Emergency Medicine Volunteer Program at the Mitchell Emergency Department at the University of Chicago Hospital, assisting at the Early Childhood Initiative Program at the Susan Golden Meadows laboratory in Chicago, volunteering with Spencer Kelly in his research work with children in the field of verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as assisting in the area of immunology and transplantation within the cardiac surgery department at University of Chicago Hospital. In the years spent at Montreal General Hospital, Dr. Hardt also volunteered within the acute care and general psychiatric inpatient units where this program was in its infancy stages of development and offered opportunities for involvement and growth, which were both formative and meaningful.

With the intention of targeting contributions and the multifaceted programs and volunteer opportunities of her foundation, ‘Gifts from the Hardt’ to the changing needs of expanding communities, Dr. Hardt spearheads efforts designed to help heal and restore neighbourhoods as well as revitalizing the dreams of the individuals therein, all the while working toward and celebrating successes—together.