ESTEVAN - The St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation’s new executive director is a familiar face for many at the hospital and in the community, but the previous executive director is still going to help out.
The foundation announced Friday that Breanne Van De Woestyne had resigned after more than three years in the role. She’ll be replaced by Lori Gervais, who joined the foundation in late 2018 and had been working with the foundation in a finance role.
In that position, she handled some duties that she’ll now have as the executive director.
Van De Woestyne, who was hired by the foundation in early 2019, will continue to be involved with the foundation’s marketing efforts through her business, Impact Creative Digital Services, which she started with her sister last year.
Gervais’ first day as the executive director was Monday.
“I realized that there was a lot of this position that I had been a part of already,” Gervais told the Mercury. “I’ve been with the foundation for just over three years, and it’s been a great job.”
Now that she’s the executive director, Gervais said she will need to give a little more attention to the foundation’s clinic that is attached to the hospital. The foundation is the landlord of the clinic. And she’ll have to spend more time on the hospital, its staff and the requests for funding.
“I love working for the foundation,” said Gervais. “I think people aren’t as aware of what the foundation is or what it does, until you get directly involved. I think the last three years we’ve done a pretty good job of the awareness, so that we’re bringing it forward to the community so they’re more aware of what actually does happen here, and what we’re all about in raising funds for the hospital, but also for our community, so that we can continue to have local healthcare provided, and provided well.”
Gervais expects she will be busy adapting to the added responsibility, and adjusting her duties for herself and Van De Woestyne to what they will be going forward.
Van De Woestyne said having her own business is something she always wanted to pursue, and she wants to explore different avenues of marketing in her own community.
“This past year has been really great, and it’s just come to a time where having so much work and having the opportunity to go full-time came up, and I just wanted to jump on that opportunity to continue on pursuing that role,” said Van De Woestyne.
Having Gervais in her previous role should allow for a smooth transition, Van De Woestyne said.
Impact Creative also recently acquired One-Click.ca, which is another venture they look forward to expanding, and creating a hub for the Estevan area to get the information they need on businesses, non-profits and other organizations.
“We’re really excited to start exploring that and to really launch that this month,” Van De Woestyne said.
Van De Woestyne is looking forward to still working with the hospital foundation. She has met amazing people – donors, patients and hospital staff – and has rekindled some past relationships during the past three years.
“(It’s been great) to really just be part of the community of our hospital, to really be able to share the stories and support something that is very important to me,” she said.
The next big fundraiser for the foundation will be the Radiothon for Life on May 4. Details on the benefit will be released at a later date.
