Each year, more than 7,000 babies are born at Mount Sinai Hospital, and two-thirds of those births are considered higher-risk than average. With its specialized expertise, physicians from across Ontario refer their higher-risk patients to Mount Sinai to deliver their babies.

Mount Sinai offers short-stay hospitality rooms for out-of-town families who need daily, close monitoring in the weeks leading up to the anticipated birth.

But once the pandemic hit, only patients requiring in-person or urgent treatment were encouraged to spend time inside Mount Sinai Hospital. That’s when KingSett Capital stepped up to provide expectant parents with free accommodations at the Courtyard Marriott in the days leading up to their impending birth.

“This is truly a shared gift to help our community during this time,” says Rob Kumer, Chief Investment Officer of KingSett Capital, a real estate investment firm that owns the Courtyard Marriott.

“We were happy to do what we can to help,” says Rob. “We see this as part of our responsibility during this time.”

KingSett Capital provided rooms at the Courtyard Marriott at a rate that is steeply reduced. To make the rooms completely free for expectant parents from out of town, a group of private donors has stepped in cover that reduced rate.

“We raised about $75,000,” says Rob. “I called these individuals and all of them said yes right away. The funds will cover five rooms a night, seven nights a week for six months.”

The pilot program is modelled after KingSett’s previously established Rest Safe program, which the firm launched in the spring. Rest Safe taps into underutilized hotel rooms, providing them for free to front-line workers who needed to avoid travel and protect their families while working through the first wave of the pandemic. Rest Safe provided 11,000 collective hotel nights for workers at Mount Sinai, St. Mike’s and UHN.

KingSett’s program to help expectant parents has been made possible thanks to the firm’s partnership with private donors including Jonathan Pollack, Daniel Wittlin, Peter Freed, Mark Litwin, Howard Sokolowski and Rob Kumer himself.

“It’s amazing to see the community come together like this to get through the second wave,” says Rob. “We’re happy to help parents during such a difficult time, and also help keep Mount Sinai’s front-line teams and patients as safe as possible.”