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Retirees from Unifor Local 1520 have barely been able to get together since the beginning of the pandemic, saving them money on meeting costs, while the pandemic has cut into fundraising at the nearby Children’s Hospital of London.
So the retirees, from the former Ford plant in St. Thomas, thought that maybe the hospital could use the money they’d been setting aside.
“All these months we’d normally be spending on meetings and expenses, we accumulated quite a bit,” said Retired Workers Chapter Local 1520 Chair Bob Such, who said the chapter has long been a supporter of the hospital.
“We called them up to see what they needed.”
It turned out, the hospital was about half way to raising the money for a transport stretcher to help get children to the hospital, but fundraising dropped off with the pandemic.
The stretcher can be operated by one person to move patients on and off ambulances, helicopters and other modes of transportation quickly and easily.
The faster a patient can be moved, the better their health outcomes, Such said, and so the chapter donated the balance of the money needed for the stretcher - $26,000. The chapter is also donating $20,000 to Childcan, a London charity that helps the families of sick children.
The Children’s Hospital of London provides paediatric care to patients in the London area and across Southwestern Ontario, and as far north as North Bay.
“Unifor’s retirees continue to give back to their communities in many different ways,” said Unifor Retired Workers Director Barb Dolan.
