The recent news that the Manitoulin Health Centre has reached the $350,000 goal of the hospital’s Smart Infusion, Smarter Care campaign highlights the strong culture of giving that infuses Manitoulin Island’s communities.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Lions Clubs, the two site’s hospital auxiliaries and countless individual donations, the fundraising thermometer has reached the top.
That news is only one of many fundraising successes and efforts that regularly grace the pages of The Manitoulin Expositor and we all, as a community, owe a great debt of gratitude to those incredible individuals who make these things happen.
From our hospitals to women’s shelters, food banks to historical preservation, each and every day these folks are manning tables offering up raffle tickets such as the Lions Club Catch the Ace, or scurrying from business to business seeking donations, holding dinners such as the Manitoulin Streams Jackets and Jeans Fundraising Dinner and Auction, to the host of small church run teas and dinners that help to keep the doors open for tiny rural congregations and let us not forget those chocolate covered almonds and other snacks brought home by schoolchildren to threaten their parents’ waistlines (who among us has not munched their way through their child’s supply, only to pony up the bill at the end).
Without those efforts our communities would be, quite literally, poorer all around.
In a modern democratic Western society such as Canada, and by extension provinces like Ontario and our Island municipalities, governments provide a social safety net that helps keep the wolf from the door—but it is never enough to do the job adequately.
That is where the hearts (and wallets) of our communities come in.
Unless one owns a business, it is hard to comprehend the number of hands that come seeking support for various causes in any given week. There is hardly a week that goes by where a hockey association, a figure skating club, Girl Guides, historical society, conservation group, or other charitable organization doesn’t appear at the door—and the response they receive is nothing short of incredible—even as those businesses themselves are finding times tough. Ever it has been so.
The closure of the Island’s only Beer Store will likely have a detrimental effect on that most Canadian of fundraisers, the bottle drive (in recent years expanded to include beer cans). One must wonder if our current provincial masters bothered to think about that while they were “expanding” beer sales to grocery stores and convenience outlets.
In these times where every dollar has become more precious, even as its buying power rapidly recedes, there are more and more people who are finding their lives in a precarious position. That is why those who are able step up to the plate to help, time and again.
The challenges facing our national and provincial governments are legion. Tariffs, a world that has become more dangerous by the minute, faltering productivity, housing shortages, rising unemployment are coming together in a perfect storm to challenge their (by which we mean “our”) resources.
The next time you see a volunteer sitting at a table outside a grocery store selling tickets or greet a Cancer Society canvasser knocking at your door, dig deep and dig often, of course, but also take a moment to offer your gratitude for their efforts, for without them, so much of what makes our communities special would fade away with the wind.
