Door to WLMH’s future opened by volunteers, activism
The first organizational meeting of the Community Action Group at Mountainview Christian Reformed Church, chaired that night by Brian Hutchings, flanked by (L to R) Dr. Denise Marshall, John Armstrong and Cindy Toth, was another step on the long road of the community advocating for its hospital. Williscraft - Photo
volunteer-based Community Action By Cindy Toth Group (CAG). Many brought their Tony Joosse & hard-won experience back to the Dr. Tom Estall table – worn down, but not out. ur community’s latest Our next big community meetjourney to save and rebuild ing at Mountainview Christian WLMH started at Trinity Reformed Church on Oct. 30, United Church on Oct. 24, 2018. launched the CAG. The critical ‘first About 2,000 area residents filled responders’ were immediately joined every inch of the church with many CINDY TONY Dr. TOM by more volunteers willing to commit others attending but forced to wait TOTH JOOSSE ESTALL their time, expertise and passion. outside, unable to get in due to Again, people turned out by the brought out together people who had not capacity issues. hundreds. It was important to have a virtual seen each other in ages. It was as if time had It was clear that the situation was urgent. connection along with face- to-face opportunot passed since we met over past challenges Many were quick to recognize the threat as nities, so some key volunteers made sure the the message amplified across local media. This to our hospital. meeting was streamed via Facebook Live. Our WLMH is special. Hamilton Health Scicall to action brought back memories of the social media and webpage have been key tools ences’ Healthy Futures, a health-hub-based 1997 candlelight vigil for our hospital - standfor engagement supported by a core commuvision, was developed with incredible coming on Grimsby Secondary School’s sports munity input. This vision was what our com- nications team – still on duty. The commufield - with thousands of people. nity gave generously to get actions underway. munity understood would be the future for We also remembered the failure to get to a With Armstrong Strategies on board to promised rebuild – thoughts were ‘here we go the hospital even into 2018. We had to ask ourselves – what changed? There was disbelief support engagement, the growing CAG again’. Personally, it was not easy to make the deci- and skepticism that the community could team could draw on their expertise. There change the proposed and dire future newly sion to go to this rally to hear about yet anwas an enormous amount of activity needput on the table for WLMH. other challenge to WLMH’s future following ed to build a strategic approach. The CAG That night there were no clear options on the loss of a family member a few days prior. was not going to set something up for the But from previous experience as a community how to organize our community’s actions short term. We knew the community and activist, the power of community comes down but actions are what we knew we needed and team needed to deal with immediate needs. these were soon to come. to the determination of individuals working However, based on the long history of Within days, our group began to coalesce together for collective impact. Many in our WLMH rebuild disappointment it would and started connecting with supporters and community understand this. be critically important for the team to critical resources. The pace of action was Residents of West Niagara had been down intense and within a week we became the this road before. The meeting at Trinity
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42 One Team. One Dream. Magazine July 2021
