March 18, 2024
Selling brownies and ice cream to hungry high school students is easy enough. It was even easier at Winnipeg’s Collège Miles Macdonell Collegiate when paired with a worthy cause.
The school’s Key (Kiwanis Education for Youth) Community Service Club held a bake sale in January and an ice-cream floats sale in February. Through them, the Key Club raised $300 for St. Boniface Hospital’s ongoing Heart Pillow program.
Cardiac surgery patients at the Hospital receive heart-shaped pillows to keep, which Bell MTS volunteers in Winnipeg have made by hand. The pillows help in post-operative deep breathing and coughing exercises by providing compression against the breastbone as it heals from a surgical incision.
Key Club found a personal connection
Key Club Executive members Eden Humbert, Kultaj Kaur, and Betty Asfaw dropped off their donation at the St. Boniface Hospital Foundation offices in March. The Key Club’s gift will help cover costs for materials and the workspace used to make about 80 heart pillows.
“Our Key Club wanted to pick an initiative where we knew our impact would go to something direct and local,” said Kaur. “St. Boniface Hospital and the Heart Pillow program were it.”
“I loved my pillow; it helped me when I was in pain.”
Humbert’s mother is a clinical resource nurse in the Cardiac Surgery Inpatient Unit at St. B. She had inspired Humbert to hold a similar fundraiser for the Heart Pillow program when her daughter was in middle school.
“For some reason, I loved doing this fundraiser again,” said Humbert. “I don’t know why it was so close to my heart, no pun intended!”
Asfaw added that one of the Key Club’s senior sponsors from the East Kildonan Kiwanis Club revealed to them that she herself had received a heart pillow after cardiac surgery at the Hospital. “She told us, ‘I loved my pillow; it helped me when I was in pain,’” said Asfaw.
“It was nice to have a real example of someone who had a positive connection with the Heart Pillow program. She really inspired us,” said Kaur.