JOHN DAY — The Grant County Road Department, Blue Mountain Hospital District and Juniper Ridge Acute Care Center collected outdated medical supplies and first aid kits to send to Ukraine last week.

Mindy Stinnett, the John Day hospital’s trauma program manager, said the effort started when Ryan Palmer from the Road Department called the hospital to see about donating expired first aid kits.

Stinnett said that triggered her to look into a place to donate medical supplies. Sure enough, she found herself in a meeting where she heard about a program through St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. She said the hospital donated through St. Charles to the Humana Medical Relief Fund out of Wisconsin.

Stinnett said the whole team at the hospital was supportive when the email went out to the different departments urging them to gather up medical supplies.

She said the hospital’s outpatient coordinator, Meganne Mortensen, stepped up to drive the supplies to Bend without hesitation.

Stinnett said the hospital could have sent the supplies to St. Charles through the mail, but when that was mentioned to Mortensen she said she wanted to do her part by driving the supplies to Bend herself.

The hospital’s chief financial officer, Eric Pryce, was supportive as well. Stinnett said Pryce agreed to pay for Mortensen to drive the supplies to Bend.

“We got huge support from everyone,” Stinnett said. “It was really neat to see that everybody was really wanting to figure out a way to get involved in the process of the donation.”