Moncton Hospital gift shop closing after nearly 70 years of fundraising
CBC
After 68 years raising money for health-care causes, a hospital gift shop run by the Moncton Hospital Nurses' Healthcare Auxiliary will close its doors.
The group, formed in 1940 by retired or semi-retired nurses, opened the gift shop in 1956.
Gisèle Riley, gift shop manager and member of the auxiliary since 2002, says it has changed a lot in that time.
"In 1956, it was a small canteen, and it was selling cigarettes and candy, just little snack items, and it morphed into this shop," Riley said. "This shop was renovated in about 2005 to what it is today."
Now, Riley said, the space has evolved into much more. She said people describe it as a reprieve from the stressful hospital atmosphere.
"I've often witnessed this myself, that visitors will come in, patients will come in, even in wheelchairs, the staff will come in. Sometimes they're just looking around to get a little break from whatever it is they're dealing with," she said.
"Be it sick patients, be it visiting a sick patient, be it just coming in for tests. They always come in and say, 'Oh, it's so nice to come in here. I can forget what's going on outside.'"
Sale proceeds from that business — along with the group's hair salon and vendor table rentals — went to a variety of health-care needs over the years, Riley said, and totalled about $2.5 million.
The group contributed to hospital fundraising for new equipment, continuing education for nurses, the tissue bank, covering travel expenses for patients, and more.
But a dwindling membership left the auxiliary with little option but to close.
"We have agonized over this for the last two years, and hoping we would get some new members," said Riley. "We did get a couple of new members a few years back, but not enough to really fill in the gaps and take over the businesses."
The auxiliary itself will also be shutting down, along with its hair salon and vendors table.
Membership was as high as 30, Riley said, but has now fallen below 20 — with members ranging in age from 70 to 104.
In a statement, Jeff Carter, Horizon's vice-president of operations, and Julie Thebeau, communications director for Friends of the Moncton Hospital Foundation, thanked the group for their decades of contributions.
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