St. Francis Valley Healthcare Foundation (SFVH) staff and volunteers were excited when the ticket bought by Elsie Mask of Round Lake Centre revealed the Ace of Spades at the Week #18 draw of their Catch The Ace lottery last Thursday, Oct.14. The winner, however, took her good fortune in stride when she was presented with a cheque for $27,838.50 by SFVH Executive Director, Erin Gienow, on Oct.18. Above: Winner Elsie Mask holds her cheque surrounded by SFMH and SFVH staff (from left) Joanne Pecarskie, Jose Pinto, Kim Luckovitch, Kim Recoskie, Cathy Amyott, Erin Gienow, Allison Layman.
Mask disclosed that she wasn’t at home when the draw occurred, so she only learned of her winnings from a telephone message left for her by SFVH on Thursday afternoon. She admitted, “I did have to listen to it a couple of times, to tell you the truth” to be sure she’d heard the news correctly. When asked for her winning formula; i.e., why she chose Envelope #20 in which the Ace was hidden, Mask said only that she bought tickets regularly (although not every week) and just chose the numbers at random. She said she plays Catch The Ace, “Because it’s going for a good cause.”
Fellow Round Laker, Erin Gienow, was delighted to present Mask with the cheque saying it was going to a great community member, hard-working, really the “salt of the earth.” Now retired, Mask bought her winning ticket at the Round Lake Food Market. She endured a lot of kidding but insisted that she has not yet decided how she will spend her windfall. She said she has eight grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren, the youngest born on Saturday.
Gienow explained that the Catch The Ace lottery had raised $39,357 in this round alone. The proceeds are earmarked towards the purchase of a $100,000 wireless detector for the X-ray machine at St. Francis Memorial Hospital (SFMH). Cathy Amyott who works in Digital Imaging at SFMH said this is an essential piece of equipment. The X-ray machine was purchased in 2012 and the existing detector has experienced some wear and tear. She said that it is the workhorse of the department because all the images are captured on this plate and are then digitally transferred to the SFMH computer system via WiFi. The detector can also be removed from the X-ray table to digitally capture images of a patient who is stretcher-bound.
The hospital does not receive government funding for this type of equipment, Gienow said, so fundraising for essential medical equipment is a major focus of SFVH staff and volunteers. She thanked everyone in the community for purchasing Catch The Ace tickets from the seventeen vendors located throughout the Valley. She complimented the SFVH core team of nine volunteers, saying the six drivers take it in turns to drive the four to five hour route each week. The other experienced volunteers are cash counters who prepare the weekly draw. Gienow called it “a well-oiled machine.”
She said that they are keen to raise the remaining $60,000 for the detector and SFVH has already submitted an application to Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario for another licence. Residents can watch for a new round of Catch The Ace to start in a few weeks’ time.