The donations continue to roll in for A Port in the Storm, with the Rotary Club of Thompson offering an additional $10,000 to the venture.

A cheque for the $10,000 was presented to A Port in the Storm by Rotary Club members on July 22 at the Burntwood Hotel. The money was raised through the CHTM 610 and Rotary Club of Thompson million-dollar hole-in-one contest, which ran between July 13 and July 17 at Centennial Park and the Thompson Golf Course

“We like to support things that are for the whole community,” explained Rotary Club member Tom O’Brien, who also owns CHTM and was heavily involved with the contest. In past years, money from the hole-in-one contest has been used to support the Thompson Zoo and Thompson Skatepark, among others.

A Port in the Storm is a province-wide initiative dedicated to creating an affordable place for Northern and rural Manitobans to stay in Winnipeg should they need to be there for medical treatment. Rooms would be available for $45, whereas the current option available is $65 and “really just a bed and a sink”, according to A Port in the Storm board member Penny Byer.

“It’s been fantastic,” Byer said of the community support for the cause, suggesting that part of the reason Thompson has been so strongly behind the project – Thompson leads all cities when it comes to fundraising – is because “it affects everybody, or at least someone they know.”

The first challenge for A Port in the Storm was to find a suitable parcel of land in Winnipeg, and thanks to the community support in Thompson and beyond, Byer noted that “we’re very close to announcing something.”

Overall, A Port in the Storm requires $6.4 million to see their plan through to fruition. Of that $6.4 million, $5.11 million will go to construction, $220,000 will be spent on the building site, $250,000 on furnishings, as well as $500,000 for an endowment and $400,000 in development costs.

The $10,000 raised by the hole-in-one contest comes in addition to $5,000 donated by the Rotarians in the spring. Vale has also been active, recently raising over $135,000.