The Humboldt Good Neighbour Store held a gathering on Monday, December 5, dispersing funds to various organizations throughout the area. 

“This is our first public disbursement in a few years, and it’s great to be back with everyone,” said Gwen Saret, chair of the Good Neighbor Store. “Once again, we had a successful year thanks to all our loyal contributors, customers, and mostly volunteers.”

Saret says while they have dispersed most of their funds to the organizations, the Good Neighbour Store will be holding on to some funds to do necessary major repairs. 

“With this holdback, we are pleased to announce that on this Giving Monday, we are able to donate 320,000 dollars this year.”

Funds were disbursed to the Humboldt and District Hospital Foundation first, amounting to $100,000. 

“Our needs never go away. Today we’ll be able to apply these funds to new beds, OR equipment. We have a dental cart that broke down on us unexpectedly, so that was 27,000 dollars that we needed. We had two anesthesia machines that needed to be replaced at 88,000 dollars each, and that was an unexpected item for us this year. There is another in excess of 600,000 dollars in vital pieces of equipment in the hospital that is failing. The funds will be put to good use.”

Many other organizations were recognized such as St. Mary's Villa. 

“This donation will go towards our Build a Home Campaign. It’s an approximately 8-million-dollar campaign to build a new long-term care facility in the Humboldt [area]. Our current building is 60 years old, and in desperate need of being replaced,” said Donna Muench, Executive Director of The St. Mary's Villa Foundation. “With the generous donations of the Good Neighbour Store and everybody else, we are hoping to get there as soon as possible.” 

Another donation went towards the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Humboldt organization. 

“Contributions like this are the only reason organizations like this exist. This money goes towards supporting our local youth, programming, and just trying to recruit mentors,” said Tammy Ruedig, Fundraising and Program Support for Big Brothers Big Sisters Humboldt. “We have 21 kids on our waitlist right now, and we are always reaching out and trying to find mentors, and trying to support the kids we have in town as best we can.”

The Horizon School Division was also a recipient of the many cheques donated throughout the day, with the funds going towards their Christmas Hamper Campaign. 

“Over the last 9 years we have supported over 3000 children and over 11 hundred families and being able to provide them with a Christmas that they otherwise wouldn’t get,” said Kevin Garinger, Director of Education for the Horizon School Division. “We are in the process of wrapping gifts and getting ready to create these Christmas hampers that will go to all these children across our system.”

Many more organizations were in attendance, thankful for all the donations from the Good Neighbour Store in Humboldt.