durhamregion.com This Week | |Thursday, August 11, 2022 | 10 PICK YOUR FAVOURITE VOTING NOW OPEN It's in your hands. The Readers' Choice Awards were created for you to tell us which local businesses and service providers are the best at what they do! The nominations have been submitted and now the top 10 nominees have been shortlisted and are ready for your VOTE! VOTE TODAY to help make your favourite local business become a Readers' Choice Winner. durhamregion.com AWARDS 2022AWARDS 2022 For the first time in nine years, the Whitby Warriors are champions of the Ontario Jr. A Lacrosse Association. The Warriors made it a clean sweep as they defeated Toronto Beaches 11-9 on Wednesday night at Iroquois Park Sports Complex. The best-of-three series was over in two games after Whitby had beaten Toronto 11-7 on Tuesday night in Pickering. Whitby was a dominating 15-1 on its home court in the regular season and playoff action during the season in earning the Ontario title and the Iroquois Cup. Brock Haley led the Whitby attack with a hat-trick as the Warriors completed their title run. Whitby had earlier ousted the St. Catharines Athletics and Orangeville Northmen on the way to the Ontario championship victory. Both Whitby and Toronto Beaches will now compete in the Minto Cup, the Canadian Jr. A Lacrosse Championships, set for Brampton from Aug. 22-29. Owen Tapper of the Whitby Warriors checks an opponent in an earlier playoff series. The Warriors beat Toronto Beaches Wednesday night to win the Ontario Jr. A Lacrosse Championship. Julie Jocsak photo WARRIORS WIN ONTARIO TITLE WITH SWEEP OF TORONTO TIM KELLY tkelly@durhamregion.com NEWS After more than 50 years of service, on July 28, the Lakeridge Health Whitby Volunteers Service called it a day. But the hardy group went out in style, donating $54,000 to the Lakeridge Health Foundation. The money will go to a great cause too, said Fern Love, the final president of Lakeridge Health Whitby Volunteer Services. "The donation will stay in Whitby. It will go to a portable X-ray machine which will cost more than $54,000 and Lakeridge Health Foundation will put in other money. It means Whitby patients will now not have to be transferred to Ajax or Oshawa for an X-ray," Love said. A combination of advancing age of Whitby volunteers, the COVID-19 pandemic and declining numbers is the reason the group is finally calling it quits. But what a run it's been. Love recalls starting out working in medical records in the former Dr. J.O. Ruddy Hospital way back in 1969 when it first opened at 300 Gordon St. "We were very excited to have an emergency room, operating rooms and a 100-bed hospital," Love said. Love retired in 2007 from the Oshawa Clinic and immediately began volunteering at what would become Lakeridge Health Whitby (at the site of the Ruddy Hospital). An electrical fire in 2007 shut down the facility for over three years but it reopened in 2011 and Love has been there ever since. "I worked in the gift shop and did a lot of fundraising. You'd meet people who had been in a terrible car accident. Once they didn't need to be in Oshawa (hospital), they would go to Whitby (for rehabilitation) and then go home," she said. She said her highlights at the Whitby facility included Christmastime when, "we would have a tree-lighting ceremony outside and we would take the patients outside in wheelchairs and blankets, light the trees, do carols and come inside and have the families visit. There would be grandchildren and Santa Claus and gifts for them in the café," Love said. She also enjoyed donating teddy bears for patients. "We've been donating a lot of stuff. I went upstairs from the gift shop to donate and there was a patient sitting at a table and she had a teddy bear sitting on the chair. It made me happy and it made me sad. When I was going through these things, it was really hard," she said. "We got to meet an awful lot of patients and families coming and going in the gift shop. They would pick up where they left off like you were an old friend. Sometimes they'd come in and just bare their soul and you were like a safe place for them. They'd bring their loved one down in a wheelchair and they'd say, 'Look at how nice and lovely she looks.' " Eleanor Stevenson, a longtime Lakeridge Health Whitby volunteer who began volunteering at the hospital back in 1970, said she mostly concentrated on fundraising. But she looks back fondly on one specific event the volunteers put on. "Every year we put on what was called the Blossom Ball. It was the major fundraiser effort. And we did it for about 10 years. It was like a current events show. We had songs, we had dancing, we put on quite a show for the people, and a dinner and dance. That was a lot of fun. "I was one of the dancing girls back in the day. It was like a revue. We made fun of all the local politicians. We were just so proud to have a hospital in Whitby back in those days, we worked hard to raise the money to build a little hospital," Stevenson said. WHITBY HOSPITAL VOLUNTEERS DONATE $54,000, AS GROUP FOLDS TIM KELLY tkelly@durhamregion.com COMMUNITY 'SOMETIMES THEY'D (VISITORS) WOULD COME IN AND BARE THEIR SOUL AND YOU WERE LIKE A SAFE PLACE FOR THEM:' VOLUNTEER After more than 50 years of service the Whitby Volunteer Services Auxiliary has dissolved and made its final donation to the Lakeridge Healthy Foundation on July 28, 2022. Jason Liebregts/Metroland