Shred-It event will support palliative care
KRIS DUBE
SPECIAL TO POSTMEDIA NEWS
Properly disposing of your personal documents can be a mundane task but this weekend there’s an opportunity to shred them at a lower cost while supporting a local cause at the same time.
For the second year, two Shred-It trucks will be at the Meridian Credit Union on Niagara Stone Road this Saturday, a fundraiser for Niagara-on-the-Lake’s palliative care service.
The event was formerly held by the hospital auxiliary from 2011 to 2014 but when restructuring at Niagara Health closed the local hospital three years ago, the event was put on hiatus until it was revived in 2016.
Even though the hospital’s closure also dissolved the auxiliary, many of its members participate in the Shred-It event, which runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the bank parking lot.
Event co-ordinator Margret Walker says her team of volunteers are also glad to be welcoming some help from six Royal Elite International Academy students.
“We need younger people to help us because most of us are retirees,” she said, also pointing out that $3,600 was raised last year and that a target of $5,000 has been set for Saturday.
All of the funds raised will contribute to the palliative care service’s continuing search for a new headquarters.
Walker, along with board treas- urer Cindy Grant, said it is uncertain what the near future will bring.
The municipality bought the site, which is part of the same property as the former hospital, in March for $3.5 million.
“We really don’t know what next year is going to hold,” said Grant.
About 70 per cent of the organization’s funding comes from the provincial Local Health Integration Network, with the remainder resulting from grants and donations.
The team runs on 30 volunteers who visit an average of about 70 patients at one time in homes and in the three long-term care homes in Niagara-on-the-Lake.