The Grande Prairie Region Hospital Foundation had thousands of reasons to smile on Wednesday, as the not-for-profit received $55,000 from the Tim Hortons Smile Cookie Campaign.
Major Gifts Officer Dawn Miller says she is overwhelmed by not the generosity of Tim Hortons, but the Grande Prairie community as a whole for spending their hard-earned money on making a difference.
“The Tim Hortons group in Grande Prairie made a commitment to provide $350,000 towards our capital campaign and they’ve surpassed that, we’re at about $400,000 from them now,” she says.
“The new services we will be able to provide and the expansion of services we already have is going to be phenomenal.”
Miller says the charitable donation has come at an exciting time, as staff continues to countdown towards the hospital’s public opening on December 4th. She says despite some delays in construction, she thinks the facility will be worth the wait, as it greatly expands the health care capacity for the region.
“I think once people are able to see the hospital, they’ll forget about all the delays that happened and realize what a wonderful facility we have here,” she adds.
Construction on the 243-bed facility began in 2011 but was temporarily paused in 2018 when there was a change in contractors. The original contract set aside a budget of $319 million, eventually rising to a final cost of approximately $850 million.