Cooke Aquaculture has cast its generosity in support of the redevelopment at South Shore Regional Hospital.

The New Brunswick-based seafood company has donated $25,000 to the Health Services Foundation of the South Shore’s Brighter Days capital campaign, supporting the much-needed redevelopment of the 35-year-old hospital in Bridgewater.

Joel Richardson, Vice-President of Public Relations with Cooke Aquaculture, said it’s important for Cooke as a family company to contribute towards projects that help benefit communities it conducts business in and where its employees live, work and raise their families.

“We have over 400 full time employees that work for Cooke in Nova Scotia across our salmon farming divisions, hatcheries, feed manufacturing plant, trucking divisions, seafood distribution center and other operations that we run here. Health care is a key priority for everybody and we felt that the Brighter Days campaign was a really solid place for us to make a community investment and make a contribution.”

Cooke’s core purpose is to ‘cultivate the ocean with care, nourish the world, provide for our families, and build stronger communities’. Cooke’s contribution will support the expansion of emergency care at South Shore Regional Hospital. Bridgewater is home to Cooke’s head office for its Nova Scotia salmon farming operations, which has employees living in several communities along the South Shore.

“For Cooke, our people work on the water, on the roads and around major facilities. They’re working in what can sometimes be challenging natural environments where incidents can happen, so we want to make sure that the emergency services here on the South Shore are able to help our people and their families in a time of need.”

“We recruit people from all over the world to come work in Atlantic Canada,” Joel adds. “We have newcomers coming into the region, we have marine professionals coming into the South Shore to work in our salmon farming operations. If they’re considering coming to live and work in Nova Scotia and on the South Shore, one of the first things they ask is ‘what’s the health care system like?’. They want to know that if they have medical issues there are ready services available. We want to make sure we are showing our support to the local community by helping support those technical services, so health care is a top priority for Cooke.”

The Foundation’s Executive Director Arleen Stevens says she is excited by Cooke Aquaculture’s donation. “It’s wonderful to see so many of our South Shore employers, like Cooke Aquaculture, come together and make meaningful donations to our Brighter Days campaign. South Shore Regional is going to be ready for the next generation of South Shore residents, thanks to generous donations like this.

The Brighter Days Capital Campaign is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help ensure the residents of Nova Scotia’s South Shore have access to the best available health care facilities. The 48,705 sq. ft. expansion and redevelopment of the hospital is expected to be completed in 2025.

If you would like to make your own gift to the Brighter Days capital campaign: https://www.healthservicesfoundation.ca/ways-to-give/#online-donations