After over a year of planning and fundraising, JoeAnna's House broke ground outside KGH on Tuesday morning.
Once complete, the facility will have 20 rooms for out-of-town families who are staying with their loved ones while they receive treatment at the hospital.
Doug Rankmore, CEO of the KGH Foundation, says it's been a long time coming.
"KGH has been serving people from outside of this area for a number of years," says Rankmore. "The motels in town have been very supportive - most of them offer a hospital rate for people having to travel for care, but this will also be a great, supportive place for people."
Rankmore says 1 in 4 patients at KGH (approximately 100) are from outside Kelowna.
He credits the progress of JoeAnna's House to the various community donors.
"Fundraising has been going very well, but we're not quite there yet; we have an $8 million goal. " says Rankmore. "That goal is just around the build of the facility, so we're hoping that the community will continue to be engaged, because we're going to operate this hopefully for the next 60 years."
Construction is set to begin in November, with completion slated for sometime in late 2019.