When Southern Health-Santé Sud (SH-SS) launched a new fundraising initiative just under 18 months ago, it didn't take long to see it was a huge success. Noticing how the concept had worked well elsewhere, Shannon Samatte-Folkett, Executive Director of the Boundary Trails Health Centre Foundation pitched the idea for a 'payroll 50/50.'
"I connected with Kyle McNair, who at the time was the Director of Health for Boundary Trails Health Centre (BTHC). He was very supportive and on board from the beginning. Kyle was a huge help with sharing this project with Southern Health-Santé Sud, and my go-between for explaining how it would work, and what support we would need from their payroll department. SH-SS gave approval for the three regional hospital foundations to work together. Southern Health is a very large, vast region and allowing staff to choose one of the three foundations nearest to them helps engage them in the projects the foundations are working on to support their health centres."
All three regional hospitals have large projects on the horizon with their respective foundations contributing financially. Portage is getting a brand-new facility, BTHC is expanding, and Bethesda in Steinbach is building a new renal care unit.
The "Winning Wednesdays Staff Payroll 50/50" campaign is open to all SH-SS employees, as well as employees at long-term care facilities in the region that have SH-SS administer the payroll. (Tabor Home, Douglas Campbell Lodge, Boyne Lodge, etc.)
When employees enroll, they are choosing a combo of tickets they would like to purchase, and the cost is deducted from their pay every pay period. Draws are held every two weeks.
The first draw in the Staff Payroll 50/50 was held on February 10, 2021. At that time 234 employees were enrolled, and the first jackpot paid out $1474.50. The 35th draw held on June 1st included the enrolment of 885 employees and a jackpot of $5,567.
The July 13th jackpot will be $5775.
Samatte-Folkett says with over 5,000 employees spread out across SH-SS, the potential for growth is there.
"When Shannon brought forward the idea of a payroll lottery in early 2020, I thought it was a great idea, a real win-win opportunity for the Foundation and the staff," said Kyle MacNair, former Director of Services at BTHC and the current Acute Care Director for Southern Health-Santé Sud. "As the scale grew to include all three Regional Centers it got even better. By the time everything was set up in early 2021, it turned into something that we really needed. We were almost a year into the pandemic and it was taking a heavy toll on staff morale, we needed some good news, something positive to talk about and the payroll 50/50 provided that."
MacNair extended a big thank you to the Foundation for their commitment to getting this project off the ground and the staff across the region for supporting the initiative.