The Rotary Club of Sarnia is recognizing the "unsung heroes" of the COVID pandemic, with its highest honour.
The 10 recipients of this year's Paul Harris Fellowship community award, announced Wednesday, include Bluewater Health Chief of Staff Dr. Mike Haddad, Sharon LaPier of LaPier’s Flowers and Gifts in Corunna, and Mike and Zack Fiddick of Fiddick's Nursing Home in Petrolia.
Rotarian Michael Kooy said this year’s award winners all have one thing in common; a determination to help the wider community through the COVID challenge.
"Rotary is always seeking different ways to make a difference in the community and we just love it when we see other people doing it," said Kooy. "And they do it without an organization behind them, they do it on their own, they do it because it's the right thing to do, and sometimes we don't notice them, so this is a way to celebrate some of these unsung heroes and really show them how much we appreciate what they're doing."
Kooy went on to say that Dr. Haddad has done incredible work here in Sarnia-Lambton at Bluewater Health and also across the broader community, setting expectations and the tone for how to respond to COVID.
"So obviously his number one job as chief of staff at Bluewater Health is to protect patients who are coming to the hospital and also who are being treated for COVID, but also the ones in the ward next door, protecting them," said Kooy. "But also he's contributed so much to the public conversation about how we respond just collectively, like those who are not sick, 'what do we need to do?'"
The other six recipients are Mike Germain, Zoya Shetty, Marianne Hyatt, Joan Spalding, and Melanie Rogers and Jenn Cooper -- for more information on the award winners, click here.
Kooy said the club acknowledges the recipients by making a $1,000 contribution to the Rotary Foundation in their name, with the money being spent on humanitarian efforts around the world.
Paul Harris was the founder and organizer of the first Rotary Club in Chicago in 1905 and the first president of the worldwide organization, Rotary International.