Each year, Camp Quality’s volunteers have a daunting task. The non-profit organization strives to raise $100,000 in donations yearly, a sum of money that goes to their annual summer program for kids afflicted with cancer.

Indeed, any donation can go a long way in helping them reach their goal.

On Monday, it seemed that Camp Quality’s efforts were not in vain, as AbitibiBowater’s Thunder Bay sawmill operation donated $5,000 to the organization. The mill was able to donate the money because of their achievement of having no recordable injury after 250,000 hours of operation. The $5,000 safety prize was awarded by AbitibiBowater’s board of directors.

According to Clara Butikofer, a volunteer at Camp Quality, the donation has made the organization immensely happy and will definitely help in putting up the summer camp program. She commented that every year the camp draws in over 100 children, and providing them with food and other necessities for the duration of the program requires a lot of funds.

The camp, she said, isn’t about finding a cure or researching the cause behind cancer. She points out the goal of the camp is to give these sick children a cause to be truly happy.

AbitibiBowater, one of the leading producers of newsprint and market pulp, groundwood papers, groundwood specialty papers, directory paper and lumber in the world today, will be restarting one of its paper machines in its plant in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Due to the recession and low demand from the market, AbitibiBowater was forced to shut down a few machines last year, laying-off over 300 workers as a result.

Even if this means that the company’s Thunder Bay plant is slowly getting back on its feet with the paper machine’s restart, AbitibiBowater executives were quick to point out that the plant needs to use a more cost-effective energy strategy. If things remain as they are, more paper machines are expected to only shutdown once more – and maybe this time, for good, they added.

Canada’s Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union were largely responsible for negotiating on behalf of the workers on issues like labor fees and the like. The company’s Thunder Bay facility was also able to amass savings of up to $15 million, brought about by more effective energy and water usage.

The paper machine will resume operations next month, and around 100 more workers are expected to return to work at the Thunder Bay plant.

What tremendous news for many of our residents! AbitibiBowater, the company behind our local paper manufacturing plant has just announced their intention to re-open one of the two plants that have sadly been shut down due to a number of conniving factors last August. This automatically makes the holidays for about 170 employees and their families a whole lot brighter indeed.

The restart for plant No. 5 is set to be on the New Year and the announcement came after successful negotiation efforts with our local labour front and the commitments of the Ontario government to supply wood, said Jean-Philippe Cote, the company’s spokesperson.

Although this is naturally a great news from all angles, the company did say that they will have to be very careful with their financial position regardless of the shutdown. One of the factors the company has noted when they say is contributing to the challenges in operating such a plant is the cost of power. The company has already been trying to get a hold of a more viable source of power to run the plant above ground.

Regardless of the challenges up ahead, everyone in and around Thunder Bay has nothing but praise for such news and so will everyone who will be back to work by then.