Today, the Jim Pattison Group is celebrating one of its many large donations to improve health care in B.C.

It comes as B.C. Childrens's Hospital has opened a new family immunization clinic, which was funded with a $15-million donation from a Pattison Group company, Save-On-Foods.

"The Save-On-Foods family has already donated over $30 million to fund innovative programs that profoundly affect the health and well-being of B.C. children,” said B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation president and CEO Teri Nicholas said in a news release. “As lead benefactor of the immunization project and a funder of urgent equipment, this transformational $15 million gift brings their all-time giving to $45 million—making Save-On-Foods our biggest donor of all time.”

A few months, company founder Jim Pattison contributed $75 million to support the Jim Pattison Medical Centre, which will be the new False Creek Flats home of St. Paul's Hospital.

That's in addition to whopping Pattison donations to foundations that raise money for Vancouver General Hospital, Surrey hospital and outpatient care, Lions Gate Hospital, and other health-care facilities.

Board chairs and CEOs often like to give away their money where they live. Pattison has repeatedly demonstrated that, as have the chairs of Telus, Goldcorp, and Polygon Homes—to cite three other Vancouver-based companies that have made large donations in our town.

But because Vancouver doesn't have as many head offices as Toronto or Calgary—or the corporate might of the Seattle area with Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon—residents here sometimes get shortchanged.

While the average person might shrug his or her shoulders when they hear media reports about the lack of head offices in Vancouver, it actually has an impact in such areas as the delivery of health care and the level of support for arts and culture.