Organizations join forces to make First Nation kids’ dreams a little sweeter

Nearly two dozen children in Pukatawagan will be able to sleep in their own new beds this week, thanks to the Manitoba chapter of the Knights of Columbus and Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

The Knights, an organization that helps Catholic men live out their faith through service to their parishes and the community, has partnered with Sleep in Heavenly Peace to provide 22 beds for the children.

The beds, which are being shipped in pieces, will arrive this week by truck and train, together with 500 donated coats and seven wheelchairs. The cost of all the items, along with transportation, has been covered by the Manitoba chapter of the Knights.

A group of volunteers, led by Mark Desjardins, who leads the chapter, will leave Wednesday, driving to the community located about 200 kilometres north of The Pas to assemble and install the beds.

The group will travel, partly, on ice roads to reach Pukatawagan, which is also known as the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation.

“It’s a two-day trip,” said Desjardins, adding he is looking forward to the experience of driving with others over frozen lakes and rivers.

Since starting in 2019, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, an all-volunteer organization, has provided about 2,000 beds for children in the province. Their goal this year is to provide 650 beds.

Desjardins credits a prompting from the Holy Spirit and inspiration from the example of Rev. Michael McGivney, who founded the Knights in 1882 — and who is on the path to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church — for causing him to think about ways to help children in the province get a good night’s sleep.

“I prayed to be led in the right direction to make a difference,” he said, noting that the Knights of Columbus in the U.S. are heavily involved with Sleep in Heavenly Peace in that country.

Those prayers led him to contact Bishop Murray Chatlain, previously the bishop of Keewatin-Le Pas, but currently leading the Archdiocese of Winnipeg.

After asking Chatlain where the need for beds was greatest, he was put in touch with Rev. Dhana Amarlapudi, who serves as a priest in Pukatawagan.

“There are not enough beds for all the children here,” Amarlapudi said, adding that many houses in the community are overcrowded, with as many as 15 or more people living in each one. “They sleep on couches or on the floor.”

The beds “will have a big impact, showing them that someone cares,” he said, adding the gift of beds, coats and wheelchairs is particularly significant during this season of Lent, when giving is encouraged. “It’s one of the pillars of the season,” he shared.

The beds are provided by SHP, an organization whose mission is to ensure that “no kid sleeps on the floor in our town.”

Each bed is made up of a wooden headboard, frame, slats, mattress, pillow, and bedding, said Bonnie Emerson, co-president of SHP’s Winnipeg chapter.

“We are beyond thrilled to partner with the Knights,” she said, adding that, for children, “having their own bed enhances their mental, emotional and physical health… it seems like a small thing, but it really makes a difference for the long-term well-being of a child.”

Emerson, a Winnipeg Police Service superintendent for community engagement, is especially happy to be part of a response to needs in the north, where disparities can be much larger and where many people are still impacted by the evacuations from last year’s wildfires.

For Desjardins, the payoff will be when he sees how happy a child will be to get a new bed.

“That’s the motivation for why we do it,” he said, noting this is the second time Manitoba’s Knights have collaborated with Sleep in Heavenly Peace. Last year, volunteers from the group assembled 31 beds.

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