HUMBOLDT — The St. Mary’s Villa Foundation Agency is preparing to launch a fundraising campaign for a new long term facility to replace their current outdated facility.
A recent report released from the provincial government stated that the aging building and infrastructure at St. Mary’s Villa creates significant challenges and restrictions in caring for its residents.
“Our existing facility is aging,” said Donna Muench, executive director of the St. Mary’s Villa Foundation.
“The rooms are small, most of them do not have bathrooms or they are shared bathrooms, so that means they have to go on commodes, which sometimes have to be stored in their rooms. That is not the ideal thing, and our infrastructure is aging. There’s just constant upkeep on the infrastructure.”
Muench said the Foundation board approached MLA Donna Harpauer and health minister Jim Reiter to request provincial funding. Muench said that they were told that the province does not approve planning dollars in a budget for a long term care facility until a community has raised their obligation, or a portion of it.
The capital dollars needed to build a new long term care facility are a shared responsibility between the community and the province.
The community is responsible for 20 per cent of the cost and the province is responsible for 80 per cent of the cost.
The province does not allocate funds until the community has raised their portion.
“We were hoping to start the fundraising part this year, but 2020 has started off a bit odd,” Muench said.
“We don’t know how much [we need to raise] because they don’t do the study until we raise some funds. So what that is, we don’t know.”
The original building was built in 1963, with additional wings being added in 1963, 1965, 1977, and 1992.
With permission from Canada Revenue Agency, the foundation first started setting funds aside for this project in July 2018.
“Once we received that the board felt it was necessary to start putting funds away, because when we spoke to the region, they didn’t indicate we were going to get a new facility, but we need it. We know it takes a long time, it took 20 years for the hospital to raise their funds, so we thought, ‘We better start now.’”
To date, about $160,000 has been raised.
“We haven’t really started the fundraising, we just put it out there for those looking to set up their wills and estates, and just regular donations,” Muench said.
“The majority of it came from wills and estates, but we also had some come from donations directly to the ‘new building fund.’”
To donate, funds can be sent to the St. Mary’s Villa Foundation at PO Box 1743 in Humboldt to the attention of the “new building fund”.
“We do the best with what we have, but we really need a new facility.”
