Red Cross Creations boosts local health campaign with $1,000 donation

By Ian MacKay

A local group raising money to help buy items needed at the hospital and Rose Villa got a boost to their annual fall campaign when Red Cross Creations gave it a cheque for $1,000 last week.

Judy Kahovec, who chairs the Rosetown and District Health Centre Foundation, accepted the cheque.

Darlene Aitken (front, L) of Red Cross Creations presents a $1,000 cheque from the group to Judy Kahovec, who chairs the Rosetown and District Health Centre Foundation, to help with the foundation’s current fundraising campaign, in front of Creations members Loretta Haugen (back, L), Pat Aylward and Susan Wiebe. The donation comes from the sale of handmade items. Missing are Creations members Rita Clark, Pat Green, Lorrayne Freistadt and Alva McTavish. Photo by Ian MacKay

“These ladies do such beautiful work,” Creations member Pat Aylward said later.

Women started Red Cross Creations during the Second World War, knitting socks for soldiers overseas, Aylward said. Their mothers were members, she and Darlene Aitken said. Proceeds from the sale of the goods they produce go to either local charities or the Red Cross.

A wide range of their handmade items will be available at a Christmas bazaar at Riches Antiques during the afternoon of Nov. 27.

“We’re hoping that there will be a good response (to the fall campaign) this year, now that there’s no postal strike,” Kahovec said.

She thought “a couple of new beds” had been ordered as part of the group’s help for the 2025-26 year.

The foundation’s 2025 contributions to local health included a hematology machine which is “up and running,” operated by local lab staff after it got calibrated at Swift Current, she said.

“We’re excited about all the changes happening at the hospital—the new front entrance, the new stairs and walkway up to the hospital,” Kahovec said.

Work to install doctors in the basement “is a go,” she added. “They’ve revamped the south entrance” for the entrance to the new clinic, she indicated.

“They’re working on three or four different things, so it’s a little noisy some days up there, they say, because the walkway to emergency was taken away,” she said. “They had to do some things to the bottom, then they will put the walkway back, but it will be covered in.”

“We’re looking forward to it,” with completion scheduled for March, Kahovec said.