Thanks to the efforts of Annie Waters, the Nanaimo District Regional Hospital Foundation will soon be receiving a much larger annual donation from the hospital auxiliary each year. Annie is the person most responsible for launching the hospital auxiliary’s North Ridge Village thrift store.

As with most Hidden Heroes, her commitment to the hospital auxiliary started small. She began selling raffle tickets, moved on to being a hostess on the surgical floor and from there committed to giving birth to the thrift store.

It all started three years ago when Annie attended a hospital auxiliary regional conference in Port Hardy. That’s when she first heard that many smaller centres like Port Hardy, Ladysmith and Chemainus were grossing over $200,000 a year from their hospital auxiliary thrift stores.

The next April she attended another conference in Langley along with her auxiliary president, Diane Ross, and heard even more thrift store success stories. That’s when she committed to taking the lead to start a thrift store in Nanaimo.

In June 2005 the membership gave approval for Annie to explore the potential more seriously and to look for a location.By August she had visited five or six successful hospital auxiliary thrift stores, developed a strong business case, found their current location and gained the approval of the auxiliary membership to continue. The store opened a few months later.

“I believe this has been my special assignment in life,” Annie grinned as she explained how all the pieces came together. For instance as soon as they started looking for show cases, they heard that an antique market in Chemainus was going out of business and had show cases for sale … cheap. Robertson Rentals lent them a truck and quick as a wink the cases were in the new store. Then Zellers heard about their efforts and donated 22 clothing racks and so it went with one bit of “good fortune” leading to another.

It only took a couple of months to get the store ready to open; a couple of months of sweat, tears, a whole lot of hard work and even more laughter.

If anyone ever asked me about the best trip I’ve ever been on, it would be this one,” Annie enthused. “We’re just a bunch of girls with grandmother faces playing store!”

“Everyone likes working for her,” Diane Ross says. “She’s always smiling and she has a really good business head.”

“I’ve never before met people like this,” Annie told responded, “they are all extremely giving, generous and totally without agendas. It’s so much fun being together.”

Prior to the thrift store opening the hospital auxiliary boasted a membership of 100 or so members. Today it’s over 200. That means twice as many people have been given an opportunity to help build a better hospital.

The store also opens an opportunity for those who don’t feel they have enough time to volunteer to support the hospital by donating items for sale or by purchasing “treasures” at exceptionally good prices knowing that the profits from their purchases will go to the hospital. It’s a win/win situation all around … a situation that would not be available if it weren’t for the vision, commitment and hard work of Annie Watters.

Annie has decided that it’s time for her to step back and let others take charge. Her husband is having surgery and she feels he will need more of her attention over the next year or so; however, she assured me she will never leave the store. For the next while you’ll find her working with greeting cards and golf balls.

Next time you are admitted to the hospital or go to visit a friend; you might want to say a silent thank you to Annie Watters.