By Andrew Macdonald
- Topic: Arthritis Society’s Celebrity Roast Features Brothers Don Mills & Jim Mills
The seasonal event of the year is being held this coming Tuesday evening, (June 14th) when the annual Arthritis Society’s Celebrity Roast is held.
This time the event features brothers and leading Halifax entrepreneurs, pollster Don Mills & Office Interiors founder and proprietor Jim Mills. The Mills’ also co-own Cabco, the Burnside HQed cable installer.
Originally in 2020, the Mills siblings were to be roasted but the pandemic cancelled two years’ worth of the well-attended event.
This time, 800 folk have bought tickets for the fundraiser being held at the Halifax Convention Centre, which is part of Joe Ramia’s Nova Centre complex in downtown Halifax.
Brothers, Jim Mills, left, and Don Mills.
A website has been set up for the roast and is found at: DonandJim.ca – where tickets can be bought or donations made to the Arthritis Society.
“As a past chair of the Arthritis Society and national board member, as well as someone living with the disease, I am pleased to participate in this year’s roast with my brother Jim. This is an important cause for me personally and I am looking forward to an evening of fun at our expense to support the work of the Arthritis Society,” says Don Mills, on the website.
Jim Mills adds: “I’m thrilled to be supporting the Arthritis Society in an event that supports such an important cause. And I’m looking forward to sharing with my brother Don the fun that will be thrown our way by people that are very close to us. This is a significant fundraiser for the Arthritis Society and we both love supporting our community.”
The two entrepreneurial siblings have significantly raised $300,000 net for the event.
Jim Mills is the proprietor of Maritime-wide Office Interiors, and Don Mills, in his mid-twenties founded a polling entity in 1978, called Corporate Research & Associates.
Jim Mills co-founded Office Interiors 30-years ago. He stands beside signage for the motto of Office Interiors: “Love the way you work”. (The Notebook photo).
Don would later go on to sell it in 2018 for an undisclosed sum to his three leading executives, who then rebranded it as Narrative Research.
The well-known Mills entrepreneurs by allowing themselves to be roasted at the future Arthritis Society fundraiser, join other past roasted business leaders, such as the late Charlie Keating, car dealership magnate, Rob Steele, leading residential landlord Jim Spatz, and former Halifax-Royal Banker, Kim Mason, among others.
The Nova Scotia Division of the Arthritis Society event for next March will present the 28th Annual Celebrity Roast.
“The Society is thrilled that this event, over the years, has honoured 28 of Nova Scotia’s most prominent and respected citizens”.
Office Interiors CEO and co-founder Jim Mills. (The Notebook photo).
“As one of Halifax’s most popular fundraising events, attracting corporate and business leaders, this event has raised more than $3,300,000 to help the children and adults in our province, who suffer daily with the pain and challenges of arthritis”, says the local branch of the Arthritis Society.
“We are delighted that the 28th Celebrity Roast will be adding Don and Jim Mills to our illustrious list of roastees”, the society adds.
“Don and Jim are no strangers to the business world in Atlantic Canada and are both highly recognized for their community involvement”, the society says.
“Both have strong ties to the Arthritis Society; Don as a past Board Chair and Jim having sat on many Celebrity Roast Committees as well as sponsoring many of the Roast events”.
Don Mills founded pollster Corporate Research & Associates in 1978. Mills sold the company in 2018 to his top three executives. The Notebook photo.
The society also writes: “Arthritis is the most common chronic health condition in Canada, more than diabetes, heart disease, cancer and stroke combined. In Nova Scotia, we are motivated by living in a province that has the highest prevalence of arthritis in the country (one in four Nova Scotians)”.
I caught up to Don Mills to talk about the fun, where he will have good-natured ribbing at his and Jim Mills’s expense.
I asked him if he is ready and prepared to take some ribbing and be light-heartedly poked fun at in front of 800 party goers.
“I think so – I hope so,” he says chuckling.
“We have a good group of people who have agreed to be our roastees,” adds Don Mills.
The roastees include business leader, Robert Zed retired journalist Jim Meek, formerly of the Halifax Herald, the Mills’ other brothers, Jeff & Dave, and Mayor of Halifax Mike Savage.
Dave Mills retired from a business selling a branding and promotional company, while Jeff Mills is a senior guy at Marsh Canada.
There is a lot of roasting typically between the Mills brothers. “This is the way we interact. We are always roasting each other – this will be the same old for us.”
Don Mills says the NS-Halifax business community has really stepped up to the plate, either by buying corporate tables of ten seats or by becoming corporate sponsors of the event.
“We’re particularly happy with the corporate support – it has been really outstanding and I think we have the most ever corporate sponsors for the roast. We’re very humbled by that support level,” Don Mills tells The Macdonald Notebook.
“The Halifax business community really hits well above its weight in terms of supporting charitable causes. The number of people to support charities is pretty limited and they support a lot of different activities – I’d like to give great credit to our business community for always stepping up to support charities and non-profits.”
Tickets for the Arthritis event have been set at $250 a pop.
“The most important thing we are doing is highlighting the cause. Arthritis is a disease that one in five Canadians over the age of 15 are currently dealing with – so 20% of the population. For the older cohort, those 70 and above, 50% have some form of arthritis”, says Don Mills.
The event will also seek to raise funds for the Arthritis kids’ camp at Camp Brigadoon in HRM, for youngsters suffering from juvenile arthritis. “They have been running a camp for many years and during the roast, we will support sending kids to camp as part of the evening.”
To send one child to camp costs $1,000 for a week of fun-filled activities.
Jone Mitchell, the executive director of the Arthritis Society of NS, says there will be a separate fundraiser for the camp at the roast, where individuals will be asked to consider cutting cheques for $1,000 to send kids to the camp.
“The Arthritis Society holds its camp at Brigadoon Village. Our camp is called Camp JoinT-Together, adds Mitchell.
At the roast, “an arthritis hero who is 13, who has been going to the camp since he was seven. He is going to talk about his experience living with childhood arthritis,” she explains.
“Kids with arthritis, it is inflammatory – it is not like osteo. Kids take heavy-duty prescriptions,” she adds.
“This camp provides kids the opportunity to meet other kids with arthritis, who understand the pain and challenges that they go through.”
Extra nurses are also sent to the camp, given the nature of prescriptions the kids have to take to treat arthritis.
Former ‘celebrity roasts’ have included the following community leaders:
Frank Cameron
Fred MacGillivray
Denis Ryan
Jerry Lawrence
Robbie Shaw
Steve Parker
Dale Godsoe, C.M.
John Risley, O.C.
Jim Moir
The Late Charles Keating, O.C.
The Late Paul O’Regan
Sir Graham Day, O.C.
The Late Dr. Richard Goldbloom, O.C. and The late Dr. Ruth Goldbloom, O.C.
The Late John Savage, O.C.
Jack Flemming, C.M.
Mickey and Colin MacDonald
John Hamm, O.C.
Robert Zed
William Stanish
Robert Steele
Paul Sobey
Stephen Plummer
Kim Mason
Michael Donovan
Jim Spatz
Doug Doucet
