Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Serving the Hub of the North since 1960
Volume 57 • Issue 8
Northern Spirit Manor marks 10-year anniversary BY IAN GRAHAM EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
BOARD GETS SCOOP ON BURNTWOOD NEWS - PAGE 2
TB INFECTION NOT OUTBREAK INDICATOR NEWS - PAGE 3
ENCOURAGING MORE WOMEN IN POLITICS NEWS - PAGE 5
HUSKIES WIN 47TH MUNN CUP SPORTS - PAGE 7
The community that supported Thompson's personal care home looked back with current and former staff to those early days as Northern Spirit Manor celebrated its 10th anniversary on Feb. 17, a little over a decade after its official opening on Feb. 9, 2007. Wayne Hall, who was a member of the committee that helped raised the community's share of the construction costs, remembered that it seemed like a daunting task at first. "They wanted me to work on a committee to raise $300,000 so that we could have a care home in Thompson," he said. "From that point it looked like $300,000 was a whole lot of money. They said, well you've got five years to do it. I thought, well, maybe we can get it done in five years." As it turned out, the community's passion for the project was much greater than the committee anticipated. "We received donations every day," Hall said. "Some donations were from companies that could afford to give us a fairly good donation. I remember getting a donation from a lady that was on a pension and it was a donation that she could afford. That took us one year and 20 days to raise that money and that is not because we ran faster, were any smarter or are any better than anyone else. It was because the citizens in this community wanted this establishment so badly
Thompson Citizen photos by Ian Graham Above: Sya Gregovski and Janet Brady, who were on the committee that raised over $400,000 to build Northern Spirit Manor, pose in front of the wall of donors during the 10th anniversary celebration. Right: Original manager Betsy Wrana, left, and current Northern Spirit Manor manager Kristyn Wickdahl, right, speak to celebration attendees. that they were willing to do anything to get it and they did it. I'm very proud of Thompsonites for what they did. We kind of caught the government a little bit with their pants down because they didn't put a shovel in the ground for three years." Betsy Wrana, who served as the personal
care home's first manager when it opened 10 years ago remembered realizing that the project was truly Thompson's when a staff member said the building was a little dirty and that there was no toilet paper in the weeks leading up to
its opening. "It was at that moment that I was able to smile and say, 'I have to tell everybody here that we're it,'" she said. "Nobody's buying our toilet paper for us, nobody's cleaning the kitchen, nobody's doing the charts
for the patients, no one's getting the meds ready. It's all up to us to get everything organized before the resident come and it was like looking at deer in the headlights." Now, she says, current Continued on Page 5
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