After 11 years as co-convener of the gift shop in the lobby of the Louise Marshall Hospital here, Annette Lefrancois has announced her retirement.
As a newcomer to the area, Lefrancois joined the hospital auxiliary in 1998 on the suggestion of a friend who said it would be a good way to meet people.
Lefrancois has been co-convener of the gift shop since 2005.
She first worked with auxiliary member Barb Vincent as co-convener. When Vincent resigned the position, Barb Bye stepped up as co-convener with Lefrancois. For the past year Gail Jefferson and Lefrancois have served as gift shop co-conveners.
In addition to working at the gift shop, which is open Monday through Friday from 9am to 4pm, the women schedule other volunteer workers and do all the shopping for items to be sold in the shop.
The gift shop is filled to overflowing with items to make patient stays in the hospital more comfortable, such as snacks and reading material, razors and toothbrushes.
The gift shop has also become known as a good place in Mount Forest to buy gifts – everything from baby clothes and tablecloths to jewelry, hurricane lanterns, scarves, touch lamps and gloves.
“The touch lamps are a big thing right now and the gloves have been flying off the shelves,” said Lefrancois, who knits many of the baby items offered for sale at the gift shop.
New items purchased to be sold in the gift shop are shown to auxiliary members at the organization’s monthly meetings.
Cheques, often worth hundreds of dollars, are also presented regularly to the auxiliary to be dispersed, along with money raised in other fundraising endeavours, to the hospital and hospital foundation.
Over the years thousands of dollars have been raised.
“It is lucky that Gail (Jefferson) said she would take it over,” Lefrancois says.
“A lot of the auxiliary members are older and probably don’t know the Brampton/Mississauga area where we do most of the shopping for the gift shop. It’s a bonus because Gail is younger and knows Brampton.”
Jefferson has been an auxiliary member since 2011.
A co-convener to work with Jefferson has not yet been named.
Lefrancois says community support for the gift shop is phenomenal.
“The (hospital) staff has always been pretty good at supporting us,” she says.
“And people in the community know what we have. We try to buy things to sell that we’re pretty sure you can’t get elsewhere in town, and we don’t mark anything up really high.”
In addition to raising funds through the gift shop, the Louise Marshall Hospital Auxiliary holds an annual Christmas bazaar and luncheon in November, an annual spring luncheon and, for the past two years, a bake sale at Pike Lake on the May long weekend.
The spring bazaar is scheduled this year for May 6 at the Mount Forest United Church from 11:30am to 1:30pm and features a lunch of pulled beef on a bun, salads and homemade pie for $10 per person. There is also a bake table and door prizes.
The third annual bake sale at Pike Lake is being held on May 21 from 9am until all the donated baking is gone. In its first year the bake sale raised $1,000; last year $600 was raised.
Lefrancois and Jefferson both live at Pike Lake. Lefrancois is moving from the community to be closer to family in Brampton.
