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Paul Greszczyszyn remembers Keith Saunders as a fun guy who worked hard in the grocery business for his entire adult life.
“I worked with him for 22 years, but I think he probably started when he was 18 or 19,” Greszczyszyn said from his home in Oshawa, Ontario, a 10-minute drive from the Real Canadian Superstore where he and Saunders worked before Keith, 48, got sick on March 19, and died of complications from COVID-19 six days later.
Saunders was the manager of the natural foods section at the big box grocery store, a suburban brand of Loblaws Companies Ltd., Canada’s largest grocery chain, though recently he’d been filling in around the store as it got busier. At least one staff member took early retirement out of concern about the pandemic.
“ “Keith didn’t have the luxury of working from home.” ”
But helping out around the store was nothing new for Saunders, a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union member for 24 years before his promotion to manager.
“He was a really nice guy who helped everybody,” Greszczyszyn said. “He’d make work fun. He’d joke around and make it relaxing.” Greszczyszyn points to COVID memes Saunders posted to Facebook as late as March 16, as evidence he was still trying to lighten the darkening mood among his friends, many of whom also worked as grocers.
Among more than two decades of shared memories, Greszczyszyn picked two that he said summed up the friend he lost.
One night, Saunders walked into a midnight shift to help stock the shelves after closing. Noticing his four or five co-workers were looking especially sleep-deprived, he went to the store’s sound system and blasted some of the loud metal music he loved to wake everyone up.
Years earlier, just after the Oshawa location opened, Greszczyszyn remembers that Saunders took up the slack of a still understaffed store and worked 30 days in a row. “He was really dedicated to working.”
Saunders’ death made news across Canada, both because he worked in the grocery industry, and because at the time of his death, he was the youngest Canadian to die of COVID-19. Though generally healthy, Greszczyszyn says Saunders had recently been off work for a year on sick leave.
Read more: Stories of the lives lost to COVID-19
The week Saunders died, his union secured hazard pay for its 25,000 members working for Loblaws across the province of Ontario, and was working to get additional protections for front-line workers when another employee at the Oshawa store tested positive for COVID-19.
“Keith didn’t have the luxury of working from home,” said Wayne Hanley, president of Saunders’ longtime union, UFCW Local 1006A. “I’m so proud of him, and of all our members, for standing up and taking this challenge. In the worst of times, they’re a shining light.”
Keith Saunders was born Aug. 24, 1971, and raised in Pickering, Ontario. He was predeceased by his parents, Heather and Bill Saunders, originally from Hare Bay, Newfoundland, and leaves his wife of two years, Katy Saunders, and pug Squish.
