Every penny counts.
That was shown Friday when the United Steelworkers Union Local 1-2017 donated a hefty $41,000 to Canadian Red Cross in Williams Lake for its wildfire assistance program.
“The money came from our employees and our union’s humanitarian fund which is generated by employees donating one or two cents an hour from their wages,” union president Brian O’Rourke said. “The money is used for all kinds of disasters and contributed world-wide.”
Lise Anne Pierce, field operations lead for the Canadian Red Cross centre located at Boitanio Mall, expressed her gratitude saying the money will be used to help people that fall outside the guidelines of receiving funding directly.
“We have already helped 4,800 people in the Williams Lake area through donations from private people and corporations,” Pierce said. “It will also go to help people in the long-term. There are lots of people that are under insured.”
Union first vice-president Paul French said they were inspired to donate the funds to Red Cross because 98 per cent of the local’s members evacuated during the summer’s wildfires and benefited directly from Red Cross.
“We had members working at Mount Polley Mine, the sawmills, Central Cariboo Disposal and home support that got aid,” French said. “We also wanted to donate the funds to the Red Cross because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said donations to the Red Cross would be matched dollar for dollar.”
On June 11 of this year the USW Local 1-425 in Williams Lake and USW Local 1-424 merged at their annual convention to become Local 1-2017.
O’Rourke said initially they were part of Local 1-424 which started in 1945, but the Williams Lake group broke off around 1977 and started its own local.
Today there are about 5,400 members in the combined local, he added.
Here Pierce and O’Rourke talk about the donation.
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