Grant and Funding Programs Offered by Kurling for Kids (K4K)

Kurling for Kids is a volunteer-driven Canadian charitable foundation that uses sport and community events to generate financial support for children’s hospitals. Created in 1999 after the founders’ daughter received life-saving care, the organization has grown from a single local curling tournament into a national fundraising movement. Through annual K4K curling tournaments, golf events, raffles and hosted community fundraisers, the foundation channels donations, sponsorships and ticket sales toward pediatric care across Canada.

The foundation’s core role is to raise and distribute funds to partner children’s hospitals and their foundations. Money raised is used to purchase critical medical equipment, fund advanced treatments and support specialized programs that would otherwise be difficult to finance through regular hospital budgets. Supported items include incubators, neonatal and cardiac monitors, neurosurgical lasers, respiratory equipment, simulation tools for clinical training, and therapeutic initiatives such as speech and language camps and the Dr. Clown program.

Kurling for Kids partners closely with hospital foundations in Montréal, Sherbrooke, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and other regions. Each year, it agrees on specific projects or equipment lists with these partners, and allocates the funds raised locally so that money collected in a given region benefits that region’s children’s hospital.

Funding from Kurling for Kids benefits infants, children and families requiring specialized pediatric care, from neonatal intensive care to neurosurgery and rehabilitation. The foundation highlights impact stories from patients and families whose treatments or outcomes were directly improved by equipment and programs financed through K4K donations. Since inception, the organization has raised more than $5.8 million, supporting thousands of children, multiple hospitals and numerous multi-year equipment and program commitments.

While Kurling for Kids does not operate an open-call grant program, it functions as a discretionary funding body that collaborates with established hospital foundations. It identifies priority needs with each partner—often multi-year equipment purchases or program funding—and commits to specific pledges, such as multi-year support for a Centre for Pediatric Cardiac Sciences or dedicated contributions to simulation institutes and therapy camps. Donors and participants can see how their contributions are used via detailed annual breakdowns on the “Where Your Money Goes” and “Supported Foundations” pages.

Beginning as a small thank‑you event in Montréal, Kurling for Kids adopted its current name in 1999 and has since expanded first across Québec and then into Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba. It has become one of the largest single‑day, volunteer-led curling fundraising initiatives in Canada. Over the years, the foundation has broadened its activities to include golf tournaments, raffles and corporate involvement, all with the goal of increasing its funding capacity for pediatric hospitals nationwide.