Dr. Strang awards handed out
Five Cape Bretoners honoured for community efforts during pandemic
SYDNEY — Five Cape Bretoners have received one of Dr. Robert Strang’s neckties but don’t expect them to start wearing them.
The five are among 20 Nova Scotians chosen as winners of the Dr. Robert Strang Community Hero Award for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic to make their communities a better place.
Each of the winners, chosen from 179 nominations, has received one of Strang’s whimsical neckties, autographed by him and framed. The award was created by Doctors Nova Scotia partnering with Nova Scotia Health and IWK Health in honour of Strang and his Public Health colleagues. It is meant to honour those who have put others first during trying times.
“Even during the pandemic, Nova Scotians are working hard to help others,” said Nancy MacCreadyWilliams, CEO of Doctors Nova Scotia. “This award is about honouring those who have gone above and beyond to make life better for people in their communities.”
The Cape Breton winners include a popular baker, a pharmacist who literally goes the extra mile to help others, a nurse practitioner who prefers to credit his community, a Northside man who makes food more accessible to those who need it and another Northside resident who takes caring to a whole other level.
Here’s a brief look at their stories:
• It was known as the Caring Closet but these days, North Sydney resident Lisa Bond, 38, has modified her approach to helping others. She started the Caring Closet at T.L. Sullivan School to ensure all students had the supplies they needed, as well as free lunches. But since the pandemic began, she now delivers those lunches, clothing and necessities to the students who need it in the trunk of her Buick.
“People contact me with whatever they need and I just drop it off on their step and message them from the driveway.”
Bond says she’s pleased to be recognized for something she would normally do.
“You can’t fix everything but you can fix as much as you can,” she said. “The kids really appreciate it.”
• Last October, Port Hawkesbury pharmacist Michael Hatt, 40, purchased an ambulance online which he then had converted into a mobile vaccination clinic. During the fall he drove it to rural communities, giving flu shots in areas that may not normally have access to them. Now the ambulance is parked in the lot of the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy on Reeves Street, where Hatt has been using it as a clinic to administer COVID-19 vaccines.
Hatt says he was surprised but pleased to receive the award.
“It hasn’t really kicked in yet. It’s great just to be nominated. I didn’t think I would be one of the finalists so I’m very appreciative for that.”
• She might be best known for her tasty cinnamon buns but Port Hood’s Mary Janet MacDonald, 69, has also become well known for her weekly Tunes and Wooden Spoons show on Facebook that delivers recipes, conversation and comfort to people at home during the pandemic. Like Hatt, she’s also surprised by the nomination and the award.
“Isn’t that just amazing? I am completely humbled by that. Number one, anything to do with Dr. Strang, I love. He’s a man I think all Nova Scotians just adore. And it’s pretty nice to think someone nominated you and they thought enough of the little thing I’m doing, (that it) would mean so much to them. It just brings me to tears.”
• He just turned 28, but Athanasius Sylliboy of Eskasoni is already a community leader devoted to keeping people safe and healthy across Mi’kma’ki. While working as a nurse practitioner during the day, Sylliboy spends his evenings making self-isolation packages and developing COVID-19 information, including educational videos, posters and other materials, in both English and Mi’kmaw, to disperse across Mi’kmaw communities. He also helped develop a COVID-19 community hotline providing education on COVID-19 and support to families who were self-isolating, helping people with language barriers access essential information.
He is now helping facilitate the vaccine clinic at Eskasoni. He emphasizes he doesn’t work alone.
“I didn’t do what I did to be recognized,” he said. “It was more so to minimize the impact of COVID in our communities. I really do feel that it’s important to even just take a stand in terms of leadership and if anything, I would wish that my community was recognized rather than just me as an individual because it was a collective team effort in terms of the health centre and just even the community’s response to how we prepared ourselves for what was to come or what might potentially come.”
• Even during a pandemic people still have to eat and North Sydney’s Lawrence Shebib makes sure food is available to whoever needs it. During the pandemic, he adjusted how the food bank operates so volunteers could work more safely and people could get their supplies without having to worry. Under Shebib’s guidance, the food bank has moved to a new location, the former Seton Elementary School site, where it has become a community hub, assisting clients in new areas such as housing and employment.
“I was surprised,” he said. “I had no idea — some of the language they use in the letter was really not fitting. They’re calling us heroes — I don’t consider myself a hero. I’m just trying to keep everybody safe.”