From left, Ralph Boychuck, Gordon Hein and Marina Mitchell with the Rose Garden Hospice, Malcom Jenkins, owner of Canadian Tire in Prince Albert, and Tracey Feher, chair of Spark Theatre, attend a cheque presentation for $20,000 to be put towards the completion of the Rose Garden Hospice. (Brady Bateman/paNOW Staff)

By Brady Bateman

Large donation for Rose Garden Hospice

Mar 28, 2019 | 6:12 PM

Prince Albert’s planned Rose Garden Hospice is another step closer to reality, after a large donation was made from a local businessman.

Matching the funds received from the recent performance of ‘Calendar Girls’, Canadian Tire owner Malcolm Jenkins donated $20,000 to the hospice.

“We had three sold out shows of Calendar Girls, and we pledged before the shows that we would match the total value of the tickets sold and donate that to the hospice, which is a campaign near and dear to our heart,”Jenkins said.

“The folks responded beautifully. We had over 1,200 or 1,300 people come to the show and it just cost me 20,000 bucks, so I don’t know how happy I should be, but what the heck it’s a great cause.”

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Jenkins added he is largely in favour of the hospice system, which allows hospital beds to be freed up, and provide better quality of care for residents at a cheaper cost.

Marina Mitchell, chair of Rose Garden Hospice, received the cheque from Jenkins, and said it was a day worth celebrating.

“There are still people who don’t know about the hospice, and don’t know what a hospice is so this has been great exposure for us,” Mitchell said.

“The story of Calendar Girls really played well with our goal and the idea of the hospice. The next step is to keep going with the fundraising, we plan on doing our Hike for Hospice again at the beginning of May. We’ll be doing advertising for that soon.”

Also in attendance of the presentation was Tracy Feher, chair of Spark Theatre’s board of directors, who also played the role of Annie in the recent performance of Calendar Girls.

Feher said she was overwhelmed with the local community turnout.

“Beyond thrilled. The cast, all of us, are just over the moon at the support that the folks in P.A. have provided to both the Spark Theatre and the Rose Garden Hospice,” Feher said.

“We couldn’t be happier with the turnout of people, with the response we had. This was such a win win situation, we got to play in front of a full house three nights in a row and Malcolm Jenkins wrote a $20,000 cheque to the Rose Garden Hospice and we are beyond thrilled.”

The proposed 10-bed facility will provide home-like end of life care for residents. The capital costs including land prep, construction, furnishing and up fitting are projected to be $3.8 million.

It was announced in February that the Saskatchewan government had committed $2 million in annual operating funding for the project.

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brady.bateman@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @thedigitalbirdy