A happy combination of a promotional product order and a fortuitous find six years later led to a timely donation from the Lake Lenore Agro Co-op to the Saskatchewan Health Authority. Five cartons of N95 respirator masks, the exact type that are in short supply owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, were found in a storage area in a routine stocktaking.

Lake Lenore Agro Co-op Tom Viczko recalls the initial find.

“Some of our workers discovered some boxes in the store room. Lo and behold they were filled with respiration masks that had been ordered about five or six years ago. They were ordered as a promotion, but after that, everybody forgot about them.”

Knowing they wouldn’t have a specific use for that quantity of masks, Viczko got in touch with the Humboldt and District Hospital’s site manager Yvonne Berscheid regarding a donation. From there, Berscheid contacted the Saskatchewan Health Authority, through which any donations are processed. 

Once the donation to the SHA was cleared, Viczko brought the masks into Humboldt. The cartons were safely picked up by the SHA’s Leona Messmer who explained that the masks would be sent through the Health Authority to whichever centres required them the most.

“We were more than happy to donate them,” said Viczko. “If they can put them to use, I don’t care whether they ship them to China or New York.”

The donation comes at a time when the CEO of the SHA, Scott Livingstone, talked about having to place more stringent security measures against pilfering of personal protective equipment from health site inventories. In a recent press gathering, Livingstone confirmed that items such as masks, gloves, and gowns had disappeared and were not accounted for in inventory.

With Lake Lenore Agro Co-op’s discovery and donation, a rural Saskatchewan business lends its efforts to ensure that front line care workers, who are risking their health in an unprecedented time, have at least a thousand more masks to aid them in their mounting battle.