Thirty $5 Tim Hortons cards dropped off at the Grey Nuns ICU. I arrived at the Emergency Dept and was greeted by the COVID screener. Introduced myself and what I was there for. She joked "oh, none for me? Well, I'm not letting you in!"
After some light negotiation (kidding), she tapped me into the main hallway and off I went up the elevator to Unit 24. I sanitized and I walked up to the unit clerk's desk. There were three staff there and nurses all around attending to patients.
ICUs generally have sliding glass doors separating the patient room from the hallway with the patient rooms wrapping around the outside of the unit. Computers on wheels and other equipment is strewn about the edges of the hallway.
I greeted the trio at the desk and handed them the stack of thirty pages, one indicating it was intended for a particular RN. I won't identify them but they'd seen yesterday's post with tonight's plans and replied in excitement. I'm Not Kidding You Right Now!
They got a chuckle out of that. I thanked them again and headed on my way. I noticed tonight and last night I was only stopped at one red light on my way to and from the hospitals. I think this to be a sign.
That makes $750 of ...wait for it... $4063.05. Yeah, really. 32 new donors today came forward with $1395.15 today. I've been doing all my tracking in a text file up until now, I think it's time I broke out a spreadsheet!
I've set up a page on my website tracking the journey so far with the messages of love and support from all the donors as well as messages I've received from HCWs in receipt of these coffee cards. https://chadohman.ca/coffeeforhcwsab/
I've set a soft-goal of $5000. We're set to cover all of the EDs and some of the converted COVID units in Edmonton. I don't know where most of these units are but I have a hunch others do. Please nominate them here: https://chadohman.ca/nominate-a-unit/
That all said, tomorrow I'm starting on the EDs. I'd like to start with a suburban one. I need your input. Please check out Twitter to vote on which of ED you'd like me to deliver to tomorrow. Second place will be Wed, Third Thurs. The poll closes at 9pm Oct 5.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping make this possible. We're bringing a little glimpse of light to these health care workers at a time when it's so dark.