With the outpouring of support local frontline healthcare workers have received during the coronavirus crisis the Ridge Meadows Hospital Foundation is launching a campaign for staff to pay it forward.
For the month of April staff are being encouraged to donate to the foundation in support of the Friends in Need Food Bank, Laura Butler, an executive director at the foundation told The News on Tuesday.
READ MORE: Donations coming in for Maple Ridge hospital staff dealing with COVID-19 crisis
“We’ve been very grateful for the generous outpouring of donations of food from our community partners for our healthcare workers,” she said. “We also realize there are many others in our community who could really use some help during this crisis.”
At the end of April the foundation will match all donations collected up to $1,000 for the local food bank.
“There are folks in this community who are struggling, either with a loss of an income, or an isolated senior, or single-parent families, or kids that are use to the breakfast or lunch program at school and they no longer have access to that,” Butler explained.
“So this is just really a way for the healthcare workers to come together as a team and say thank-you to the community for all the generosity and the donations of food that we’ve been receiving but also a way to share that love and pay it forward to those in the community that are harder hit than we are,” she added.
The foundation cannot accept food donations but cash can be donated at each hospital department or staff can call the foundation to make a donation over the phone.
“I had a nurse from the emergency [room] come in a chat with me the other day, and he said we’re still working, we have a pay cheque but there are folks in this community who don’t,” Butler noted.
READ MORE: Front line workers in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows calling out for supplies
Others who wish to support healthcare workers are asked to donate to the foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
“These donations will be used for critical, high priority needs to ensure our hospital and our healthcare teams have the tools and resources they need to take care of our community right now,” Butler explained.
Funds will also help the foundation purchase other tools for patients.
“There are no longer any visitors allowed on site so buying iPads, phones and providing opportunities for our patients to still communicate with family and loved ones – those are things we don’t typically need to think too much about it,” Butler said.
To learn more visit rhmfoundation.com or call the donation office at 604-463-1822.
@JotiGrewal_
joti.grewal@blackpress.ca
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