Rotary Club of Grande Prairie hands out cheques to Grande Prairie Regional Hospital Foundation and Habitat for Humanity (photo by Liam Verster)

By Liam Verster

Rotary Club of Grande Prairie

Hospital Foundation and Habitat For Humanity benefit from Rotary Club donations

Nov 14, 2019 | 8:45 PM

The Rotary Club of Grande Prairie has made two massive donations to worthy causes, that will benefit Grande Prairie residents in the long term.

The Club held a special event, to hand out two massive cheques to the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital Foundation, and to Habitat For Humanity.

The Hospital Foundation was gifted $850,000 for new equipment. Dawn Miller, a member of the Rotary Club and the Major Gifts Officer for the Hospital Foundation, says they will be able to use the money to buy specialized equipment not provided by Alberta Health Services.

“So it will bring in new service, maybe a new specialist that can come to our city. And just makes our hospital good, but now it makes it great with the new equipment.”

Miller says AHS has told the hospital what equipment they will be providing to the new hospital, and the new donation will be used to buy some equipment off their wish list.

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This isn’t the first donation the Foundation has received from Rotary. They also received $150,000 when they launched the Key to Care Capital Campaign, bringing the grand total of donations from the Club up to $1,000,000.

The other cheque handed out was to Habitat For Humanity, for $980,000. The money will be used to build two new duplexes in the city, which will be able to house four families.

Jim Kjorlien, the Director of Construction for Habitat For Humanity Edmonton, says this is the biggest donation the affiliate has ever received.

Kjorlien says once the shovels are in the ground, the non-profit’s Family Services Division will begin screening families. They have a range of criteria to look at, including the family’s salary range for gross income, and the fact that they are Canadian citizens.

He says the families, once moved in, can stay in the house indefinitely.

“[For] a lot of families, it’s a helping hand up, not a hand out. So a lot of families will outgrow the program, so to speak, as we take 25 per cent of their income, and it puts stability into their lives, and a lot of families will move on anywhere from two to three to five years. And we buy the house back, and then we renovate it, and put another Habitat family into it, so it truly is a sustainable program.”

MLA for Grande Prairie, Tracy Allard, was on hand for the cheque presentations, and says she was very happy to witness the donations.

“I love seeing stuff like this, and I would say that everybody knows that we’re facing some economic headwinds in terms of our provincial situation, the budget that’s just come out, there’s some challenges for sure, and people are feeling it. So it’s so exciting to come to things like this, where you see local communities come together to really make a difference, and target funds and resources to projects that really make a difference.”

Allard adds that she loves to see donations go towards what are essentially legacy projects. When investments are made for equipment or resources in a hospital, it becomes the Province’s responsibility to maintain or replace it when it comes to the end of the life cycle. Allard adds that it’s true for the Habitat for Humanity projects as well, and it helps people with a ‘hand up, not a hand out,’ giving people an opportunity to get ahead when they are right on the edge.

President of the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie, Steve Madden, says these are both long term contributions to the community. He says the housing will be able to help people for many years, and their work with the Hospital Foundation looks to be a multi-year partnership. He says when they receive funding applications, they look for long term effects, which Madden says is why they also chose to help fund the Daytime Homeless Facility at the end of September. Madden says that along with being able to secure some life saving efforts and long term projects, many of the Rotarians are excited to be participating in the Habitat For Humanity Builds.

Madden adds that he’s very happy to be making these donations to such good causes.

“This is very significant, even for a Rotary Club of any nature. With our club we’re about 90 to 100 members strong right now, they all work together in different ways, and fundraising is one of our key efforts that we do, but it is a significant amount of dollars that we’re putting on the table back into the community.”

He says the Rotary Club receives lost of requests for fundraising supports over the course of the year. They then holds a club consensus to hear from the members, who have spent countless hours raising the money, then vote on which project the group should support.

Madden says they hope to see the Hospital Foundation start spending the money before Christmas, and for Habitat to have shovels in the ground, building the new homes, by the spring.