The Central Okanagan Foundation generously provided $15,000 in funding for the BREATHE Project in 2025 – an initiative co-supported by the BC Lung Foundation and Simon Fraser University providing “do-it-yourself” (DIY) air cleaners free of cost to citizens across British Columbia.
With these generous funds, the BREATHE Project hosted five of our DIY air cleaner workshops across the Central Okanagan in Lake Country, Peachland, Kelowna, and West Kelowna throughout May and June. This funding provided 125 households in the region with DIY air cleaners to reduce health impacts during wildfire smoke season.
The Central Okanagan Foundation contributes to the quality of life for citizens across Lake Country, West Kelowna, Kelowna, and Peachland through the building of endowment funds, giving grants, and providing community leadership. Connecting people to causes that matter, they encourage contributions to endowment funds that provide long-term, sustainable support for community charities. They also enable donors to make an immediate impact by flowing through donations directly to charitable causes.
In addition, this funding supplied 20 DIY air cleaners for a workshop with Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture (RAMA), a migrant justice collective that advocates for Latin American and Caribbean migrant farm workers in the Okanagan Valley. The workshop was hosted in both English and Spanish with volunteers from RAMA and UBC Okanagan assisting the BREATHE team.
These DIY air cleaners help clean particulate matter from indoor air spaces and function as well as a ~$300 commercial air cleaning unit, but are a much cheaper alternative costing around $85 to build. Donors like the Central Okanagan Foundation allow the BREATHE Project to provide these DIY air cleaners to participants free of cost. In addition, workshop participants were given resources on the risks of wildfire smoke and particulate matter on their lung health and how to better prepare themselves for wildfire season.
Project Founder and Principal Researcher, Dr. Anne-Marie Nicol, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University spoke to the dangers of inhaling wildfire smoke and why it’s important to take precautions: “The health of people in the Central Okanagan region is increasingly impacted by wildfire smoke. While people with existing lung diseases such as asthma and COPD are often most noticeably affected, there is a growing awareness that pregnant women, young children, older adults, and people with cardiovascular diseases need to be particularly careful to reduce their wildfire smoke exposure. Staying indoors when it is smoky and learning to reduce indoor smoke levels, like using a DIY air cleaner, are critical steps for people living in wildfire-prone regions.”
The entire team at BREATHE thanks the Central Okanagan Foundation for championing their project and helping citizens become more climate resilient.
BREATHE Researcher and workshop coordinator for the Okanagan and other interior regions, Riley Condon, spoke about her experience working with COF: “[it] was a terrific experience. They were keen to participate in workshops, engaged with our team, and cared about the experience for participants. Community support like this is what makes our project successful and sustainable. Growing up in the area, it’s great to see organizations supporting projects that positively impact the health of citizens and providing them with the tools to be climate resilient.”
You can learn more about the important work that The BREATHE Project and the Central Okanagan Foundation are doing on their respective websites.
