On behalf of Bell MTS Volunteers, Paulette McIntyre and Jo-Anne Pelzer presented a $10,000 cheque in August 2021 to Dr. Lorrie Kirshenbaum, Director, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Karen Fowler, President and CEO of St. Boniface Hospital Foundation.
Aug. 12, 2022
Talk about big hearts.
Long loved for their handmade heart-shaped pillows, Bell MTS Volunteers showed a new side to their support for St. Boniface Hospital in 2021.
Since 2010 this volunteer organization of active and retired Bell MTS employees, including friends and family, has run the Heart Pillow Project.
Jo-Anne Pelzer leads a handy group in fashioning some 900 of the big red pillows every year for St. Boniface Hospital – each “made with love and never used in a pillow fight,” as she likes to say.
For cardiac surgery patients the pillows aid in postoperative deep-breathing and coughing exercises. The pillows provide compression against the breastbone as it heals from a surgical incision. Last year Pelzer, with fellow Bell MTS Volunteers Carole Craig and Val Warkentin, were looking to do something more for the Hospital.
Pensioned retirees and current employees enter their volunteer hours into the Bell Giving program. As hours accumulate, Bell MTS Volunteers apply for grants from Bell Benevity.
“Combining multiple grants from our team members, we had a significant dollar amount,” said Pelzer. “The goal was to make one large donation.”
With some options from St. Boniface Hospital Foundation to consider and input from a broader Bell MTS Volunteers cohort of 25 or so ladies, they made their decision.
“We wanted the funds to support research into women’s heart health,” said Pelzer. “It was a woman whose open-heart surgery led us to start making the heart pillows. At least three of us – likely more – have had heart trouble. My mother passed away from a heart attack.”
Pelzer and associate Paulette McIntyre hand-delivered a $10,000 donation to Dr. Lorrie Kirshenbaum, Director, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, and Karen Fowler, President and CEO of St. Boniface Hospital Foundation.
High-res digital camera will show more details in damaged hearts
The donation will go a long way in supporting new research into diagnosis and treatment of heart disease at St. Boniface Hospital, said Dr. Kirshenbaum.
“We’re using the donation toward purchase of a new high-resolution digital camera and software for one of our confocal microscopes,” he explained. “The camera will be a major upgrade that will allow us to see with detail changes that occur in damaged heart muscle after heart attack. This will extend our current research capabilities by allowing us to better understand how the heart muscle becomes damaged during heart attack and other diseases such as heart failure.”
As Manitoba’s Cardiac Centre of Excellence, St. Boniface Hospital recognizes the importance of research focusing on distinct aspects of women’s heart health.
Bell MTS Volunteers, and hundreds of others like them, are making a difference at St. Boniface Hospital. Our thanks to all of them.
Fight heart disease. Donate today.