PEMBROKE — On February 27th a delegation from the Pembroke Civitan Club presented the County of Renfrew Paramedic Service with 160 teddy bears. The bears will be distributed across the Paramedic Service, and some will be distributed to other first responders including local police and fire services. The bears will be given to children by first responders when they respond to calls that involve a child. The aim is to provide some comfort to the child during a stressful or traumatic time.
Chair of the County of Renfrew Health Committee, Janice Visneskie Moore said, “The Health Committee thanks the Pembroke Civitan Club for their thoughtful and very caring donation. These bears will certainly be well received by children in our community, and hopefully bring them a small comfort during a difficult time.”
Deputy Chief of Paramedic Services for the County of Renfrew, Brian Leahey said, “Handing out teddy bears to children at an incident has been practised for quite some time.”
The child may not always be the patient but there are times where they are at the scene and are impacted by the incident, or they sometimes need to ride along with the patient that is often their parent, he said.
“ We are very thankful to the Civitan Club for providing these ‘care bears’.”
Bonnie Tarrant, President of the Pembroke Civitan Club said, “This donation goes back to when we saw paramedics at Miramichi Lodge one day, and we asked ‘how can we help?’ We felt that donating these stuffed bears was a great way to help comfort those children that are at the scene of incidents. We collected 160 bears, 100 representing the 100 years of Civitan International, and 60 representing the 60 years of the Pembroke Civitan.”
