NIPIGON — Thanks to their local Tim Hortons, Nipigon District Memorial Hospital can move ahead with planned upgrades to equipment and continue delivering a high standard of care.
On Dec. 21, the hospital announced that Tim’s Holiday Smile Cookie Campaign raised over $1,512, adding that the funds will be put towards the Long Term Care ward.
Shannon Cormier, chief executive officer of Nipigon District Memorial Hospital, said that Tim Hortons reached out to the hospital in November to inform them that they’d been chosen.
“Tim Hortons had reached out to us and let us know that we had been chosen for this year’s Holiday [Smile] Cookie Campaign, and we had some plans for the long-term care so it was a really great fit to help support the patients,” Cormier said.
It was also in November that Cormier took on the role of CEO, following former CEO Cathy Eady’s retirement.
Cormier said that the funds raised from this campaign will specifically be used to purchase “two brand new bathtubs” for the long-term care ward.
“One of them keeps breaking down and the other one is not far behind… we’re updating the equipment to make sure that they have some new, working, fancy tubs… they’re so needed because they’re used everyday,” Cormier said.
She added that there are currently 22 long-term care beds and that, much like the tubs they have at present, the new tubs will be “used well”.
This is the first year that the hospital has been chosen as a recipient for the Smile Cookie Campaign, according to Cormier.
Her enthusiasm was infectious as she said that the residents “sure had fun with it.”
“The residents got right into it. We couldn’t bring all the residents up to Tim Hortons to decorate cookies so we brought the cookies and icing here and they got to decorate them from here during the week. It was a lot of fun. A couple of the residents [did come] up to Tim Hortons with us to get the big cheque, which was quite fun, and then they brought it back to the rest of the group,” she said.
After taking pictures with the big cheque, everyone enjoyed some Timbits and celebrated the campaign’s success.
The novelty and excitement of it all still lingers.
“We still have [the big cheque] in our admin office here,” Cormier said. “We got to keep it.”
“It was such a surprise and an honour to be chosen by our local Tim Hortons. And we just really had a lot of fun with it. In the end, it’s absolutely going to benefit all of the residents here at the hospital so we’re very grateful for the opportunity.”
“The staff are not only grateful but the residents had such a great time throughout the week [and] it was just a lot of fun all around.”
