Help where it’s needed

Gowans and his wife, Carol, had been to Haiti many years earlier and wanted to help with the rebuilding effort. Through a group called Impact Nations, they flew in six months after the January 2010 earthquake and were put to work in both a medical clinic and rebuilding a small kitchen in one of the tent cities that had sprung up.

The following year, the Gowans worked in another medical clinic and helped to distribute everything from water-purification systems to 1,500 pounds of clothing they had collected from colleagues at National Bank’s Victoria office.

The Gowans’ duties included working at the “free table,” where patients, after seeing the doctor or nurse, would come to pick up a piece or two of clothing or items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and shampoo.

“Anyone can do this, John Gowans says. “I don’t have any medical skills, but I’m used in different capacities. They certainly don’t need an investment advisor. My philosophy is I don’t do anything on a grand scale. It’s just one person at a time.”

Last year, the Gowans started focusing on helping Haitians to regain their independence, including granting a microbusiness loan of $3,200 to a young man to help him set up a small grocery store. They don’t expect to see the money again, Gowans says, but that’s not the point. The grocer has promised to pay back $50 of his profits every month, assuming he is in the black, to his local church. The grocer’s wife is a schoolteacher, but she cannot rely on a steady income.

“They are very impoverished people,” Gowans says. “They have overcome more adversity than you or I could ever imagine. I asked him, ‘What’s your dream?’ And he said he wanted to open a grocery store. We asked him to put together a budget. I’ve been in touch to give him a bit of help. Without even knowing it, I’m mentoring him in his business – which is funny because I don’t know much about grocery stores, let alone grocery stores in Haiti.”

Adds Gowan: “I’m not telling him what to do; I’m giving him suggestions. My next several years there will be less involved with bringing in lots of goods and more with helping people establish a life again.”

Gowans was particularly moved one night, when he saw a group of Haitian students gathering under a street lamp. They weren’t there to loiter or to cause trouble; they were studying there because they didn’t have any lights at home.

So, the following year, Gowans stuffed 100 solar-powered lights into his suitcase, then gave them out to students in Haiti. “I thought, ‘These guys want to get ahead’,” Gowans says. “I didn’t have much room for clothes. As you can imagine, the electrical grid in Haiti is expensive and erratic.”

One day, after Gowans had finished working, a local woman approached him and gave him a bar of soap as thanks. In Haiti, that gesture is huge.

“You can’t be Westernized in your views,” Gowans explains. “You have to understand that what she gave me was something that was real special to her. All you have to do is make one person’s life better that day. From there, you start looking farther afield.

“I like to think [it’s as if] you’re taking a holiday with purpose,” he continues. “Just do it. The worst that can happen is you’ll spend a couple of weeks of your life and you’ll come back different.”

Haiti isn’t the first country to benefit from Gowans’ generosity. In 2008 and 2009, after years of merely sending cheques to various organizations that worked in Romania, he helped to build a little house for a family there. “We got a bit of a taste of what it’s like to go and put something in place for people who have nothing,” he says. “You get more out of it than you’re giving. We gave them furniture and clothing, and we changed a life.”

Gowans says charity work can have its share of hardships, such as accommodations that would have trouble getting any kind of star rating. He says that being affiliated with a local church has encouraged him to be a little more open toward helping people in a practical way.

Not all of Gowans charitable work has been in other countries. He also has volunteered with the Salvation Army, helping to feed people and trying to build a sense of self-worth within some of the men who came into that soup kitchen.

Gowans also has donated his time to a local youth outreach group, in which he used his woodworking skills to show some young people how to build tables and other pieces of furniture. At the same time, Gowans acted as a sounding board to some young people who really needed one. One young man, who was dealing with his fair share of problems, took Gowans’ advice and became an apprentice carpenter.

“We’re very privileged as investment advisors, and we do well,” says Gowans. “We’re in one of the most dynamic industries in the world. You can’t hoard it all to yourself. I know this sounds crazy, but I transition very easily from talking to the very wealthy to a guy at the Salvation Army. The reality is we’re just people. Our job as advisors is to listen and do what our clients are asking us to do. The same is true of volunteering. If you make yourself available, you’d be astonished at the reward. Don’t be afraid to try different things – you’ll find the one that fits.”

© 2013 Investment Executive. All rights reserved.