When Royal Columbian Hospital staff arrived at work this morning, they were greeted with a little Valentine’s Day surprise: posters and hearts along the entrance walkway.
The posters – boasting messages such as “Thank you health care workers,” “Thanks for the love” and “Believe in science" – were one neighbour’s way of responding to the truck convoys and anti-vaccine-mandate protests that have sprung up over the past couple of weeks.
“We just wanted these health-care workers to know that we’re thinking about them,” said Meaghen Taylor-Reid. “We feel slightly helpless as to what we can do to help, outside of getting vaccinated, wearing our masks and things.”
Taylor-Reid and her seven-year-old daughter, Nora, decided to take on the art project along with two friends of Nora’s – Katelyn, who’s in the same Grade 1 class as Nora at Skwo:wech Elementary School, and her older sister Kalina, in Grade 3.
Taylor-Reid provided the printing in the form of big bubble letters, and the girls got to work with an array of brightly coloured paints to fill them in.
“The kids were all over it,” Taylor-Reid said. “That energy was just contagious for them.”
Living just a block away from the hospital, the Sapperton resident says she’s always conscious of the hard work that goes on within its walls 24-7.
“Because we live right here, we hear the ambulances and the helicopters,” she said. “We always think, ‘That could be any of us, at any time.’”
Since today is not only Valentine’s Day but also Random Acts of Kindness Week, Taylor-Reid thought the timing would be perfect. Her original plan to stealthily place the decorations without being spotted didn’t pan out, since too many workers caught them in the act.
But Taylor-Reid was happy to see those workers get some joy out of the moment.
“Everybody walking by, I could tell had at least a little smile,” she said.
She’s hoping that other folks in the neighbourhood will stop by to perform their own act of kindness by sharing the display on social media and posting it with their own thanks to health-care workers.
“We’re all connected in all different kinds of ways to people in health care,” she said. “The idea is just to send the love out, however we can.”
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, [email protected].
