PeaceHealth Ketchikan gift shop volunteers met last weekend to award grants totaling about $70,000. (PeaceHealth photo)
The gift shop at the local hospital is the source of about $70,000 worth of grants awarded this month to various programs at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center.
Each year, volunteers who run the gift shop choose where those grants will go and, according to PeaceHealth, they voted on Feb. 18th to 
help purchase wheelchairs for Long Term Care; window blinds and sleeping chairs for the birthing center; art supplies and games for social services; and a used vehicle for the Prince of Wales Island clinic, among other items.
Most years, gift shop volunteers are able to award about $35,000 in grants. According to PeaceHealth Foundation, not all of the previous years’ grant awards had been used; and there had been some generous donations in the past year to the gift shop. That allowed volunteers to award about twice as much as usual.
In all, gift shop volunteers awarded about 30 grants to different programs within PeaceHealth Ketchikan.
