William Henry Albert Willbond, M.S.M., Saanichton, British Columbia
Meritorious Service Medal (civil division)
While in Nairobi in 1998, William Willbond witnessed first-hand the lack of health care facilities and the plight of Kenya’s destitute victims of AIDS. Upon his return to Canada, he joined the International Community for the Relief of Starvation and Suffering (ICROSS) and later became Chairman of ICROSS Canada. Through this organization, he solicited contributions from various sources and collected large amounts of excess medical equipment and desperately needed medicine which he shipped, often at his own expense, to Kenya’s health care workers. Mr. Willbond’s remarkable achievements, enhanced by his compassion, have greatly contributed to alleviating the misery and suffering of Kenya’s less fortunate.