CIBC is helping make the lives of families with children undergoing cancer treatment at the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital a little bit easier.

On Thursday, the bank announced that it has donated a gift of $250 thousand dollars to the hospital’s foundation to establish the new CIBC Pediatric Oncology Family Comfort Fund.

The new fund is designed to help support families by helping pay for non-medical expenses such as groceries, meals, lodging and parking.

Dr. Roona Sinha says a number of patients and their families will benefit from the new fund.

“I think every pediatric oncology patient in the province is going to benefit from this fund and so I think that’s one of the things that’s most exciting is the fact that it’s going to really help, um, all of our patients.”

Shelby Delorme, the mother of three-year old Weston Delorme who was diagnosed with cancer in August says the new funding means a lot.

“I appreciate it a lot because I’m a single mom, so it helps. I try and do a lot of fundraising, I try to get advances from my assistance but you’re only allowed every six months. So it’s hard, especially knowing that I have another kid on the way.”

Shelby was the first to receiving funding from the new fund.

CIBC has previously donated to the Children’s Hospital in past. In 2015, the bank donated $250 thousand dollars to support a treatment room in the Day Medicine and Pediatric Oncology Unit.

The announcement of the new fund came on World Childhood Cancer Day.