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How Hemp Can Help: St. Vincent Nurse Strike
In solidarity with the striking nurses of St. Vincent’s, a Worcester hospital, and in honor of National Nurses Day, Sunset Lake CBD is donating $2,500 to the nurses’ strike fund. As workers ourselves, we want to support fellow workers fighting for better conditions and contracts.
The nearly 10-week strike is for better pay and staffing levels, the latter of which St. Vincent nurses say were far too low to ensure adequate patient care.
Why We’re Donating to the St. Vincent Nurses’ Strike Fund
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that all workers are essential. Without workers, our grocery stores wouldn’t be stocked. Deliveries would languish on warehouse floors. Garbage would pile up on the curbs everywhere.
Without workers— nurses, janitors, physician assistants, doctors— who would help us recover in our hour of need? Certainly not wealthy healthcare executives.
As a majority worker-owned business, we understand just how important workers are. That’s why we offer our workers a starting minimum wage of $15/hour and a host of other perks. But we know that it’s not enough to stand by our own workers. We’ve got to invest in the well-being of workers all over.
While we know it’s no substitute for standing on the picket line, we’re hoping that this modest donation of $2,500 can help meet some of the needs of St. Vincent’s striking nurses that are holding strong for better contracts.
See our official press release below:
SUNSET LAKE CBD DONATES $2,500 TO ST. VINCENT’S NURSES’ STRIKE FUND
BURLINGTON, VT May 2021 — Sunset Lake CBD, a majority worker-owned CBD company based in Burlington, Vermont is donating $2,500 to St. Vincent Nurses’ Strike Fund. The announcement of the donation comes on National Nurses Day.
St. Vincent nurses have been on strike since March 8, 2021 over pay and staffing levels, the latter, the nurses say, have been far too low to ensure adequate patient care. Tenet, the Dallas-based healthcare company that owns the Worcester-based hospital, has reportedly posted profits of $97M in the first quarter of 2021.
Sunset Lake CBD, a nearly two-year-old company, has a connection to Worcester through its Director of Operations, T.J. Anania. “As workers ourselves, we think it’s important to stand in solidarity whenever we can, however we can,” Anania said. “We can’t really make it down to the picket line, so we wanted to show support with a donation. This strike just really hits close to home— I used to work downtown and deliver food to St. Vincent’s all the time.”
Sunset Lake CBD is a vertically integrated hemp farm in Northwest Vermont. Originally a dairy farm producing milk for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Sunset Lake decided to diversify in 2019 and started growing hemp for CBD. As a majority worker-owned company, Sunset Lake believes in the importance of workers and has a $15/hour minimum wage.