Mahkwa Lodge donates $50,000 to SLMHC Foundation MRI campaign, donation also a tribute to the late Garnet Angeconeb

Tim Brody - Editor

Representatives from Mahkwa Lodge, accompanied by family members of the late Garnet Angeconeb, presented Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre (SLMHC) Foundation staff and board members with a $50,000 donation to the Foundation’s MRI campaign last Tuesday at the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre.
Mahkwa Lodge representative Derek Maud said of the donation, “I think it’s just us doing our part to provide a better healthcare service to the community, not only to the Municipality, but obviously to our relations in the remote communities.”
“Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre serves the Municipality of Sioux Lookout, including Hudson, the towns of Pickle Lake and Savant Lake, and 28 First Nation communities in the Sioux Lookout region,” SLMHC’s website states, “We serve a population of about 30,000 spread out over an area of 385,000 sq.km.”
The late Garnet Angeconeb, a well-respected Elder from Lac Seul First Nation, recently passed away on July 25. Angeconeb was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2015, “For his contributions to his community, for fostering relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, and for helping to promote the Anishenabek culture.”
Angeconeb had been a board member with Mahkwa Lodge, who invited members of his family to join them in presenting the donation. 
“That was one of the family’s wishes, any donations go towards the MRI,” Maud said, adding, “It was brought up at the board level and we all agreed it would be a nice tribute to his legacy.”
The campaign to bring an MRI unit to Sioux Lookout officially got underway last December. 
SLMHC announced last February that it will receive base funding from Ontario Health North West to support the operation of a new Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Scanner. SLMHC is responsible for all capital costs associated with construction to house the new MRI Scanner, as well as the MRI itself. The cost is estimated to be around seven-million dollars. 
The MRI campaign being undertaken by the SLMHC Foundation directly support the capital costs associated with the new MRI Scanner.