The immigrant services non-profit S.U.C.C.E.S.S. says that its co-founder Maggie Ip has died more than 50 years after she began the agency to help newcomers to Canada.
The death of Ip, who moved to Canada in the 1960s from Shanghai, was announced by S.U.C.C.E.S.S. on Wednesday. The agency did not provide her age or when she died.
It says she helped start S.U.C.C.E.S.S. after moving to Vancouver and realizing there weren’t enough resources to support a wave of immigrants coming from Hong Kong in the early 1970s. The organization was started in 1973.
Ip also served on Vancouver city council for three years from 1993 to 1996, and got her master of education degree from the University of Ottawa. She also served as a secondary school teacher in Canada, according to a bio from the non-profit Toastmasters International.
Ryan Drew, who works as the director of integrated services for newcomers at S.U.C.C.E.S.S., says Ip leaves behind a rich legacy, with the organization now the largest settlement services organization in Canada, helping immigrants from all over the world.
“Over those 50 years, she’s been in a variety of different roles and capacities,” Drew told CBC News. “And, you know, even right up to the present day, she was like attending volunteer recognition events.
“I think we’ve already seen her legacy in action,” she added. “We are as an agency now … we’ve gone from this small group of volunteers, you know, sort of making things happen, you know, in any way they can, to being a large agency with over an $85 million budget.”
Ip spoke to CBC News last year on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. She said that when the organization began, many immigrants were “lost” and had to rely on friends in Canada to survive.
“Then we realized that they have so much potential … to help to build this country,” Ip said at the time.
“We would really like to make sure that they are adapted, they are adjusted and they will become contributory members of society. So this is how we started S.U.C.C.E.S.S. That’s why the Chinese call it ‘immigrant mutual help.'”
S.U.C.C.E.S.S. said in a statement that Ip moved to Vancouver with her husband, Kelly Ip, and volunteered on the board of the YWCA with new immigrants in the Strathcona and Chinatown areas in the late 1960s.
She later co-founded S.U.C.C.E.S.S. with a number of other Chinese Canadian community members and the organization’s head office is still located in Vancouver’s Chinatown.
A cause of death was not released by the organization. CBC News has reached out to the City of Vancouver for comment.