The Hay River Hospital Foundation has been the beneficiary of a very impressive random act of kindness.
The foundation has received a donation of $16,450 from some employees of the Aurora Group's Mining Division.
A couple of months ago, the workers – 47 of them – each received $350 in the 2017 Random Acts of Kindness initiative by Go Auto, the parent company of the Aurora Group.
The 47 could have individually decided to do their own random acts of kindness, but instead they decided to combine the money and donate it to the hospital foundation.
"The mining crew got together trying to figure out what they should do," said Heather Coakwell, the chairperson of the Hay River Hospital Foundation. "So they decided to pool their money together and obviously it came up to a substantial amount."
Coakwell noted the money will be used to provide baby incubator beds and more items for the midwifery program and new beds and some furniture for supported living services.
"It's going to be great," she said. "Thanks to the Aurora Mining group it will take care of all that."
In February, Go Auto surprised its full-time employees with $350 each to spend on random acts of kindness.
The company donated $1 million to its roughly 2,800 employees in the NWT, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario. The $350 per employee was determined by dividing the number of workers into the $1 million.
The 86 employees at the Aurora Group's Mining Division at Ekati Mine got $30,100 to donate, while the 88 employees in Hay River received $30,800 and the 89 employees in Yellowknife received $31,150.
"A lot of people were not sure what to do with it," said Aurora Group vice-president Lee Cawson at the time.
Cawson explained employees could give the money to one person, or split it up among several people.
Plus, he noted employees could also pool their money together and make a larger donation to a person or group, which was the route followed by the 47 workers at the Mining Division.