They are the Rosseau Bag Ladies and proud of it. Dorrie Smith and Kay Wheldon are making and selling cloth bags to raise money for a new nursing station in town. To date they have sold more than a thousand bags, raising $3,000.

“‘Bag lady’ is an old English expression,” said Wheldon. “Sort of like, ‘she’s a right old bag.’” They decided to call themselves the Rosseau Bag Ladies after Smith found T-shirts that say “the Ultimate Bag Lady.”

They have a lot of fun with their enterprise and were surprised to find they have something else in common. “We grew up a few miles from each other in England,” said Smith. It was in the Yorkshire and Newcastle area, she explains, saying something too colloquially British for this reporter to understand.

The conversation leads to the history where both ladies came to Rosseau in 1983, and still didn’t know each other. “We’ll be related in a moment,” said Smith. “We do have fun. We have sold bags from the ‘boot’ of a car.” One of their early sales was to a man who gave them $50 for 10 bags. “He gave us the money and told us to pick the bags. It was great.”

Shopping bags sell for $5 each, some of the decorated bags are $8 and lined bags are $10. Book bags sell for $3.50.

“I’m going to need a bigger house,” said Smith. “Fabric keeps arriving at my home. We make the bags from fabric ends and this in itself is ecology friendly. One of the reasons we came up with cloth bags was the ecology movement toward reusable cloth shopping bags.”

The ladies appreciate the fabrics being donated. “We really have to thank Lena Paterson of Hilltop Interiors in Rosseau and Kelly Wheldon of Personal Touch Interiors in Waterloo,” said Smith. Kelly is Wheldon’s daughter-in-law.

Wheldon had both kneecaps replaced at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie on September 5.

“‘When can I put my foot on the sewing machine?’ was the first thing I asked,” said Wheldon. Smith cautioned, “I hope you didn’t volunteer to raise funds for them.”

The $600,000 Ruth Dare Health Centre with its one tenant, the Rosseau Nursing Station, is almost up and running. The community has raised $550,000 through the donations of individuals and enterprises like bags from the Bag Ladies.

Kay’s husband Al Smith is chair of the Rosseau Nursing Station committee. He said the name of the new building was changed to honour Ruth Dare. The Dare family have had a cottage in the area for many years, and a donation of $210,000 was made to the fund in Ruth’s name. Smith said there have been other large contributions, in the amounts of $50,000 and $75,000.

The new centre is on Victoria Street in Rosseau where a 600-square-foot trailer currently serves as a nursing practitioner drop-in clinic. The land has been donated by Seguin township.

It was six years ago that the community decided to build a nursing station in Rosseau. A committee was formed and three years ago it made application to the Ontario Ministry of Health for a nursing station.

The trailer was established as a demonstration project with the nursing secretariat. In May 2005, it was awarded a permanent designation. It is operated and managed by West Parry Sound Health, with operating funds provided by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

“The nursing station sees 4,000 patients every year,” said Al. “It has one nurse practitioner and a secretary. A doctor from West Parry Sound comes out to the station periodically. A nurse practitioner is licensed to do many of medical procedures.”

“Only $50,000 to go,” he said. Construction began in the spring.

“There should be a room named for Al for all the work he has done with the committee,” added Wheldon.