Hugs for communities through Emterra’s Community Care™

November 03, 2019

 

The heartbeat of a community is often the local hospital. Most people don’t know that in Canada, responsibility to keep local hospitals equipped with critical medical equipment – everything from beds to MRIs – falls to the community. Typically, hospital charitable foundations raise money through donations in the community to purchase this wide range of medical equipment. So that’s where Emterra, through our unique ‘Make Your Contribution at the CurbTM, chooses to help in two communities.

In Ontario’s Niagara Region, Emterra has been making an annual donation for eight years to the Niagara Health Foundation for the specific purpose of helping to purchase medical equipment for the Walker Family Cancer Centre, located in St. Catharines.

The donation for 2018 amounted to nearly $40,000, bringing the total Emterra has donated to support the cancer centre to nearly $312,000.

“It is a highlight of my year to visit the Walker Family Cancer Centre in St. Catharines to personally present the ‘Make Your Contribution at the CurbTM’ cheque,” says Emterra’s Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development, Paulina Leung. “We’re very proud of the Emterra Environmental and Niagara Region ‘Make Your Contribution at the CurbTM’ challenge. The program, which is a core component of our Community CareTM program, is a premier example of how the regional government and a private sector company like ours can work together for the betterment of the community.”

On the other side of the country, another ‘Make Your Contribution at the CurbTM program focuses on the local hospital in the Courtenay-Comox Valley of Vancouver Island. Here, Emterra has been making an annual financial gift to the Comox Valley Healthcare Foundation in support of the North Island Hospital Comox Valley.

Earlier in 2019, Emterra made a presentation to the hospital foundation of $3,000 to help towards the purchase of medical equipment needed in the hospital’s pediatrics unit. Over 10 years, Emterra has donated $20,000 to help buy priority medical equipment for this hospital.

Under this unique, award-winning ‘Make Your Contribution at the CurbTM program, Emterra bases how much it gives to each hospital foundations on how much local residents love their recycling program. For every tonne of containers and paper recycled in each community, Emterra donates $1 to the hospital foundations.

“This is a case where we can say every tonne residents recycle counts,” says Emterra’s VP of Operations in BC, Ed Walsh, who presented the cheque to the Comox Valley foundation. “And not surprisingly it mounts up over time. It has an impact. The 20,000 tonnes of recyclables Comox and Courtenay residents have recycled in the last 10 years have not only helped the local hospital, they’ve helped improve environmental health by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the kind of statistic that makes a difference when it comes to the health and well-being of the community.”

Shredding it up at Chilliwack, BC

Back across the water and inland a bit to Chilliwack, BC, Emterra has another very successful Community CareTM program that stands out. Every June and December, Emterra and Shred-It, team up with the City of Chilliwack and the Cottonwood Mall to hold a bi-annual event which residents love – a free Shred-a-Thon.

By the carloads, residents come, bearing boxes full of personal papers and cardboard to be shredded and recycled. And it’s an event. In exchange for the free service, residents are encouraged to bring along non-perishable food that is donated to the local Salvation Army food bank.

With the help of staff and volunteers from both Emterra and the Salvation Army, the event raised $3,542 in cash donations and food items valued at $1,755 this past June. Emterra matched the cash donations for a total of $7,084! Since the event started in 2011, Emterra has raised more than $61,000, collected more than 15,000 food items and saved thousands of trees! Now that’s a winning combination, for sure.

Special thanks to Emterra Team: Wayne Salmon, his daughter Erin, Laura Knoke, her husband Rick and Carlo Albert who helped to make the event a success!

To learn more about all of Emterra’s Community Care™ programs, visit our Community Care page. 

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