Businessmen Ray Monahan and Roger Desautels III and the four car dealerships they lead as Board Chairman and CEO were looking for a meaningful way to get involved with children’s healthcare. Fate, and love for a little baby set them on the path to the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Even as they thought about how to reach out to children, Mr. Monahan’s three-week old grandson, Sean Damian Andrade, developed an illness that required the attention of Dr. Sherif Emil, director of general and thoracic surgery at the Children’s. Dr. Emil performed a crucial operation for a condition known as gastroesophageal re ux disease. It was a success. Sean Damian is now a healthy, active ve-year-old.

A great partnership was formed soon after the operation: the Monahan and Desautels dealerships – Montmorency Ford Lincoln, Boulevard Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram, Boulevard Fiat and St-Laurent Hyundai Equus – established a fund with money set aside from each automobile sale and from basic car maintenance work, like oil changes. It has added up to more than $200,000 in donations to the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation over the last four years alone. The money raised is used in part to support the work of Dr. Emil as he tackles gastroesophageal re ux disease and a range of congenital anomalies. “We wanted to be involved with a hospital that works with children and does research,” says Roger Desautels III. “Helping Dr. Emil was important.” The generosity of major partners of the Children’s, like the Monahan and Desautels family of car dealerships, is vital to the continuing drive for cutting-edge pediatric healthcare and the research that gives families hope for a healthier future for our children.