Support IWK with art
Bloomfield Elementary hosts seventh annual Heart Art Day
With her 10-year-old daughter, Chakyra Shea cheerfully moving about beside her, Charlene Merriam shared with a Bloomfield Elementary School assembly of students, staff and visitors on Tuesday what the IWK Health Centre means to her family.
It was last April that Chakyra experienced serious medical issues that required her to be airlifted to the IWK. A lengthy hospital stay, as well as visits for checkups, followed.
Merriam spoke during the school’s seventh annual Heart Art Day, a special fundraising event in aid of the Halifax women and children’s hospital.
“We are very blessed to have a hospital that is that close to home and that they have a team that can get on a helicopter or get in a plane and come and get children in other provinces,” said Merriam.
She also commended the Bloomfield School family for its care and concern for her daughter.
“She knows that you are there, and you guys make her healthy just from your love and your concern,” she said. “She loves coming to school.” The concept for Heart Art got its start seven years ago
when a Kensington student, Hannah Harrington, made and sold heart art and encouraged other schools to do the same. She did it to acknowledge the IWK for its life-saving openheart surgery on her little brother. She encouraged other schools to join the cause and Bloomfield Elementary joined that first year. Students in all grades prepared “heart art” and had it ready this year for the scheduled Feb. 14 Heart Art Day, but they had to wait a full week to get the right weather conditions to host the event. Family and other community members visited the classrooms to purchase the artwork and make donations to Heart Art. There was also a lottery on a gift basket.
For a third year in a row, the Heart Art fundraiser at Bloomfield Elementary was held in memory of Kameron Cooke who was in Grade 1 at the school when he died. In 2015 and 2016 Bloomfield raised enough money through the Heart Art campaign to earn the IWK’s Big Fish Award for being the hospital’s top fundraising school in P.E.I. those years.
The school could be in the running for the award again this year. Last year the Heart Art campaign raised $1,756. The total raised Tuesday was $2,010.