Anne Polischuk, manager of the Osoyoos United Church Thrift Shop, shows off a sample of the clothing available. The Dorcas Ladies Group, which runs the shop, has donated $10,000 to the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation for the new Patient Care Tower at Penticton Regional Hospital. (Photo supplied)
The operators of the Osoyoos United Church Thrift Shop have donated $10,000 towards equipping the new Patient Care Tower at Penticton Regional Hospital.
The Dorcas Ladies Group confirmed a second $5,000 donation on April 16, three months after donating a similar amount to the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation for the PRH tower campaign.
Dorcas president Joan Shirriff said it wasn’t a difficult decision to donate to the campaign.
“The money has been piling up,” she said. “We didn’t work so hard just to have it sit.”
Shirriff noted although South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver is a wonderful facility, any patients with severe injuries or ailments must go to Penticton. Therefore residents in the South Okanagan consider PRH to be their hospital as well.
“It’s not a neighbour’s hospital in Penticton, we feel it’s our hospital too,” she said.
The organization opted not to commit to further donations to the tower campaign at this time, preferring to wait until next January before making any more funding decisions.
“We didn’t want to make a commitment now, because it depends on how much money comes in,” she said.
The Thrift Shop, located in the United Church basement, earns $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Shirriff credits shop manager Anne Polischuk for the shop’s recent improvements and success.
The Dorcas Ladies will also continue to donate to their various other causes including the local food bank, Osoyoos Secondary School, a high school scholarship, a foster child in Africa as well as the church itself.
Shirriff has been an Osoyoos resident for 25 years and has been involved in the Dorcas Ladies for much of that time. The organization is also open to non-church members, with more than 40 volunteers involved in the Thrift Shop.
Janice Perrino, the Medical Foundation’s executive-director, who outlined the PRH project to the Dorcas Ladies prior to their decision, noted how impressed she was of the organization and their Thrift Shop.
“What an incredible thrift shop it is. It’s down in the basement, but it’s got everything that the best thrift shops I’ve seen around the province have,” she said. “They really support their own community.”
The Thrift Shop,has operated for more than 50 years, and is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The Dorcas Ladies are named after the Biblical woman Dorcas (her Jewish name was Tabitha) in the Judaean city of Joppa, who made coats and other items for needy people in the years following the death of Jesus Christ.
Interior Health expects to select its private sector P3 partner for the $325-million Patient Care Tower project early in 2016, with construction to begin soon afterwards.
The tower will include new surgical rooms, 84 single-patient rooms, ambulatory care clinics and other facilities.
A second construction phase will see the hospital’s present front lobby and adjacent offices become part of an enlarged Emergency Department – almost four times the size of the existing emergency room.
The Medical Foundation is committed to raising $20 million for medical equipment in the new tower. For more information on the project, visit the Foundation’s website www.sosmedicalfoundation.com or call toll-free 1-866-771-0994.
John Moorhouse is the newly-appointed Development and Communications Officer for the South Okanagan Similkameen Medical Foundation.
JOHN MOORHOUSE
Special to the Times
