STRAIT AREA - Volunteer fire departments and a mobile vaccination clinic for COVID-19 are in the spotlight in this week's edition of the TELILE 24/7 Podcast. 

Host Adam Cooke kicks things off with an interview with Michael Hatt, the owner-operator of Port Hawkesbury's Medicine Shoppe branch who now has a refurbished ambulance serving as a mobile vaccination clinic for COVID-19 just outside of his Reeves Street business. Originally conceived as a project for his Doctorate of Pharmacy studies with Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), the mobile clinic was test-driven during the flu-shot season last fall and has now administered COVID-19 vaccinations to thousands of Strait Area residence since its official opening on March 29. 

The podcast then examines the new 10-year funding arrangement struck in March between the Town of Port Hawkesbury and the Municipality of the County of Richmond, which will see the county pay the town a minimum of $60,000 each year to enable the town's volunteer fire department to provide first-responder emergency service to the nearby community of Point Tupper. Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette and Port Hawkesbury Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton each offer their perspectives on the new arrangement, which ends several years' worth of often-testy discussions between the two municipal units on the Point Tupper issue. 

The Port Hawkesbury Volunteer Fire Department also factors into the podcast's final story, the tale of a teenager from the town that struggles with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. John Michael Kennedy, 19, was able to enjoy a special day of granted wishes and community support despite the hurdles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying social-distancing regulations in Nova Scotia. His father John Kennedy and the president of the Make-A-Wish Foundation's Cape Breton branch, Cathy Sutherland, discuss the early-April celebrations that included a parade through the town and a gift-opening ceremony at the Port Hawkesbury fire hall.