Related Articles

Indiana Local Raises Funds for Free Mammograms

November 28, 2011

Todd Thacker, business manager of Terre Haute, Ind., Local 725, knows how fortunate he and his members are to have steady work on inside construction work. This year, the local peaked out with 930 travelers.

One of their signatory contractors’ most recent jobs was a 180-bed private room addition to Union Hospital that employed up to 90 electricians. Says Thacker:

We worked closely with the hospital and had a good working relationship. We’ve been blessed and we wanted to give something back.

Giving back became easy after Jim Bertoli, the head of the hospital’s foundation and a former director of the United Way, asked Thacker for some help in raising funds for free mammograms to community residents on Labor Day.

Thacker, president of the Central Wabash Valley Building Trades, first secured a $500 donation for the hospital’s foundation.

Then, with Labor Day parades already planned in Local 725’s jurisdiction in Terre Haute and nearby Palestine, Ill., Thacker took Bertoli’s request to the local’s entertainment committee. The committee decided to produce pink breast cancer awareness T-shirts for union participants to sell and wear during the parade.

T-shirt sales raised more than $1,300.

Recently, Bertoli wrote a letter to the editor of the Tribune Star thanking Local 725 for contributing to the Union Hospital Foundation’s efforts. Says Thacker:

We are part of this community. It was good for us and our neighbors to link our Labor Day activities to this fund-raising effort for women’s health.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user the SuperStar