$400,000 fundraising goal reached in under one year
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
In less than a year, the West Nipissing General Hospital Foundation managed to reach a huge fundraising goal and purchase a brand-new mammography unit, which was officially unveiled on Thursday, Jan. 29. A group of roughly 25 gathered at the hospital for an official ribbon-cutting where WNGH staff, board members, foundation members and local donors finally got to see what the sum of their months of work and funds achieved. The campaign for the mammography unit began in earnest around March of 2025. Not only was a new unit installed, but the hospital also had some renovations made to the mammography room with the roughly $400,000 raised.
WNGH President and CEO Dawn Morissette thanked attendees for their work and their generosity, calling it “a big day” for West Nipissing. As she pointed out, raising $400,000 is no small task for a small community, and she was impressed at how people rallied for this cause. There were large donations made by businesses and organisations, not least of which was the Caisse Alliance, who not only “really kicked off” the fundraising campaign with a $75,000 contribution, but also pledged to match another $25,000 in donations from the community. Morissette said that this put the mammography campaign on many residents’ radars. The CEO was equally impressed by private donations. At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, she was pleasantly surprised by the community’s ongoing support, mentioning two anonymous donations in the tens of thousands of dollars by private citizens.
Morissette recalled early conversations with the hospital board about the mammography unit, as the previous one was reaching end of life. “Our board felt very strongly at the time that services at home need to be preserved as much as we can,” she recounted. Despite the high price tag, they unanimously agreed to replace the machine and keep breast screening services in West Nipissing. While usage of the machine was a factor, it was not the primary reason the board was adamant on keeping things local, she pointed out. According to the CEO, the board considers road conditions and patient safety when determining if they should keep services in Sturgeon Falls, or discontinue them and have patients access them in North Bay or Sudbury. Jamie Restoule, Vice-Chair of the WNGH board, echoed this priority, stating that it is “one of our mandates [to] make sure that we’re keeping as many services as we can right here in Sturgeon Falls.”
