Gary Averbach is partner at Vancouver-based family business Belmont Properties, a successful, family real estate business of more than 45 years.
When cancer began severely affecting several of his loved ones over a short period of time, he decided to combine his bucket list desire to walk the distance between Vancouver and Calgary with the philanthropic spirit he began nurturing as a young businessman.
Almost 80 Gary embarked on Bob’s Walk for Cancer Research on June 25, with a goal of raising half a million dollars. As he reaches the home stretch, he has surpassed his goal.
How did your walk for your business partner, Bob Golden, come to be?
“The way the walk happened is that I have a bucket list. I live in downtown Vancouver, and I’ve always been a power walker, it’s my main form of exercise, and I do it regularly. I like to walk the Seawall around Stanley Park, and it’s several kilometres. One day I said to myself, ‘If I walked this every day I could probably walk to Calgary.’ It became part of my bucket list, and I talked to people about it, and everybody thought I was insane, that I’d kill myself.”
“I always wanted to show people that 80 was just a number. My father was a bit of a hypochondriac, and from the time he was in his 40s he was convinced he was dying. But he died just shy of his 90th birthday, and I remember I said at his funeral, ‘Well, Dad, you were right.’ But he made it to almost 90 years old. So now I want to show that me [approaching] 80 years old was just a number.”
“In 2021, my business partner, Bob Golden, had some pain in his shoulder and thought he had a shoulder injury. When he went in to get it checked and they were giving him the x-ray, his bone snapped in two. He had bone cancer. Just eight months later he was gone. But when he was dying he grabbed my hand and said he wanted me to do my walk that I’d been talking about to raise money for cancer so that one day no one would have to go through what he’d gone through.”
How are you feeling, physically and mentally, as you approach the end of your walk?
“You know the saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and it’s absolutely true.
I’ve crossed four mountain ranges and been walking in below four-degree weather, wearing my toque while I walk. Being from Vancouver, below four-degrees, that’s cold! On the other hand, I also walked in B.C.’s Thompson-Okanagan region in over 40C of desert heat. Sometimes I think I can’t do it, but I do it and I feel stronger. Right now, I feel better and stronger than when I began. If anything, it’s an elixir.”
“Officially we’re at $480,000 in our fundraising, but unofficially we’re at $540,000 with more funds we know are coming in. I walked from Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, through the Rockies, the semi-arid region of B.C., and the Fraser Canyon, and it’s not so much the way I decided to walk, but that’s the route from Calgary to Vancouver. And we decided to end it at the Jack Poole Plaza, which has created a sort of symmetry.”
Can you tell us briefly about where you’re at with your family business, Belmont Properties?
“I’m not quite retired. I’m somewhat in the process but I still keep my hands in the business. My daughter, Shannon Gorski, just became enthused recently about the family business model. We’re just in the process about setting up the family office.”
Your family foundation, the Betty Averbach Foundation, is important to you. How did it come to be?
“My sisters and I started the foundation, named for my mother, with her estate while she was still alive. My daughter Shannon administers it. My father wasn’t a philanthropist, but my mother started feeling the need for philanthropy, because I had been very involved in my community and giving back when my parents were alive.”
How has your philanthropic spirit influenced you during this walk for Bob, and how are your children involved in being supportive?
“My daughter is the oldest, then I have a middle son, who has spent time traveling and working in Israel as well as in Quebec and in Prince Edward Island. I call him my “wandering Jew.” My youngest son, who is taking over my role in the business, has been doing a lot in this fundraising for my walk. My children are involved in the Jewish community and philanthropic work. They have been very much supporting me and my walk.”
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
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