Former Thompson resident Gail Morberg, who used to own Calm Air, has donated $100,000 to A Port in the Storm, a project that is looking to develop affordable housing for Northern and rural people who need to stay in Winnipeg for extended health care.
Morberg and her late husband, Arnold, built Manitoba's largest privately owned commercial airline - Calm Air - starting with single-engine bush planes in Lynn Lake.
She sold Calm Air International last March to Exchange Industrial Income Fund (EIIF) of Winnipeg for $59 million. Exchange Industrial is a diversified, acquisition-oriented income trust, which also owns Perimeter Aviation Ltd.
One of Exchange Industrial Income Fund's largest shareholders is Tribal Councils Investment Group of Manitoba Ltd., headquartered on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in The Pas, but with its corporate office in the Commodity Exchange Tower in Winnipeg. Tribal Councils Investment Group of Manitoba Ltd. is an investment fund owned by the seven tribal councils of Manitoba.
Joanne Loughery, president and founding member of A Port in the Storm, says she is overwhelmed by the donation.
"I honestly did not know what to say. I burst into tears," she explains. "People are working hard on this project - all volunteers. Sometimes you feel your work is not progressing. This gift from Gail gave us not only a financial boost in our efforts to raise money but also a moral boost."
The A Port in the Storm project started when Loughery and Pat Benjaminson, both oncology nurses, and a former patient of theirs, Greg Pilgrim, decided to honour the dying wish of cancer victim Sue Leslie. Leslie was a single mother living in rural Manitoba who had struggled with the financial and emotional burdens of staying in Winnipeg for treatment and mothering her son. She vowed that if she ever survived cancer she would build an affordable home-like environment for people like her.
