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Not many people in Thompson know about a kind deed that a company based in Grand Rapids, Michigan did for the city during the near-week long boil water advisory which began on Aug. 13.
Gordon Food Service (GFS) , a family owned and operated business which was founded in 1897 that caters to many restaurant customers in Thompson, helped the community out by donating a truckload of bottled water for the city to distribute to people in need. GFS is a privately held firm that has eight locations across Canada and more throughout North America.
Wes and Joanne MacLean, owners of Jomac Trucking in Thompson, were talking to Dale Moldenhauer, the general manager of GFS in Winnipeg, when he offered to donate bottled water to the city.
"We didn't know exactly how to do this, so we had contacted the City of Thompson and explained what GFS wanted to do, and they said the best thing was to bring it down to City Hall and that they'd contact the organizations that could disperse it," MacLean says.
Jomac Trucking shipped up the donated water, donating freight charges and workers, and dropped off the water at the City of Thompson and distributed to Child and Family Services, the Boys & Girls Club, the Thompson Homeless Shelter and the Salvation Army.
"It was really, really nice of the people to do it, and it shows they care about their fellow citizens," says city manager Randy Patrick. "You could always boil water but it was nice to have that water available for people who might not have been able to afford that on a regular basis."
Moldenhauer says donating the bottled water to Thompson was just a part of GFS and the company's way of thinking.
"It truly is the GFS way I'm empowered and expected to be an active contributor to the communities in which we do business," he explains. "We're pretty quiet about this kind of stuff, so it's more about where we're able to employ our service leadership style, and do something meaningful in the community I hope it helped out in a time of need."
GFS and Jomac Trucking were both willing to collaborate to get more donated bottled water up to Thompson had the boil water advisory lasted longer than it did.
David Markham, manager of corporate affairs here at Vale Inco, says that the day before the boil water advisory was issued the company was undergoing some routine maintenance at the Thompson water treatment plant, including reinstalling some new valves, welding some water pipelines and electrical work on the power lines that supply electricity to the plant. The work required power to be switched off at the plant, and when it was restarted approximately 40 per cent of the treatment plant was isolated due to physical pipe repair on a line.
Markham also says the high demand for water on the day of the repairs along with the equipment to provide that water being restricted combined and overwhelmed the plant's ability to produce adequate quality water.
