History

In January 1975, three Toronto health care workers, Marion Oliver, a Public Health nurse, Rosemary Surtees, a speech therapist at Hillcrest Hospital, and Margaret Smith, a social worker at Riverdale Hospital, saw the need for a self-help group for those recovering from stroke. They organized the first public meeting of what later became, on April 2, 1975, Stroke Recovery Canada, incorporated as a charitable organization to assist stroke survivors and their families in the recovery process and beyond. By 1980, SRC operated with 17 chapters in southern Ontario, ranging from Windsor in the west to Ottawa in the east. With the assistance of government funding, the SRC reached its peak between 1985 and 1987 with 45 chapters and a newsletter (the Phoenix) published 12 times a year.

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SRC (now After Stroke) has had an affiliation with the March of Dimes since September 1991, a quarterly newsletter, and optimism as we build for the future. Ongoing plans are under way for the reconstitution of lapsed chapters, and further plans for the establishment of new chapters adds to a renewed sense of After Stroke's vitality.