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Support for kids marches forward

Campbell River Rotary Club is doing something a little different this year with funds raised at the March for Children.
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Campbell River Rotary Club is doing something a little different this year with funds raised at the March for Children.

Typically, money collected at the annual fundraiser went to the maternity department at Campbell River Hospital but this year funds are going towards new equipment for the operating room and day surgery department.

“An average of three to five children go through surgery in the Campbell River Hospital Operating Room each week,” said Stacey Marsh, executive director of the Campbell River Hospital Foundation. “So it’s still going to help children but in a different sense this year.”

The Rotary Club’s donation of $12,000 will help provide the hospital with $135,000 worth of new equipment including an operating bed, warming cabinets to heat IV solutions and blankets – for comfort after surgery – and a washer sterilizer. Both the daybreak and noon hour Rotary clubs collected donations from the public at various shopping mall parking lots the weekend before Christmas.

“We stood out there with our buckets and if people wanted to, they could throw their change in.” said Sterling Campbell, president of the Rotary Club.

When the March began in Campbell River in 1954, all funds went to the B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver until 1994 when Rotarians decided the money should stay in the community. Since then, it has provided the hospital with more than $250,000.