Spreading cheer with gifts for babies

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/11/2020 (1957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Yvonne Pelletier knows a thing or two about delivering a little Christmas cheer.

For the last 25 years, Pelletier and a group of her fellow nurses at St. Boniface Hospital have been giving bags to the families of babies that are born prematurely and have to stay in the nursery in the neonatal intensive care unit during the winter holidays.

The recipient families are given a gift bag full of items that represent a year-round effort, and Pelletier and group members have already started buying items for next year’s bags, which will be complemented by a number of homemade items. Pelletier, for example, knits sweater outfits for each of the babies.

Pelletier — who lives in St. Vital and who recently left the profession after working as a nurse for 50 years — said the initiative “started 25 years ago as a small bag with a stuffy toy in it.” As the bags grew in both size and quantity, so did the family connection.

In the mid-1990s, Pelletier’s brother, Renald Paul, was a schoolteacher at École Guyot (400 Willowlake Cres.). In the initiative’s second year, Paul offered to bring a collection of white bags into his classroom for his students to decorate with drawings, thereby starting an annual family tradition. Paul’s daughter, Danielle Boudreau, a teacher at École Sage Creek School (315 Sage Creek Blvd.), now carries on the decorating duties with her class.       

Undeterred by COVID-19, Pelletier said this year’s bags are still being assembled despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic — not least the challenges associated with going to stores.  

“Things are a bit different this year, and because of COVID we have to pick and choose what we can buy,” Pelletier said, noting there is a limit of 30 bags because there are 30 beds in the nursery.

“Through the years, I’ve worked with a fantastic group of people, and when the time comes to distribute the bags, they come together and deliver them. There’s also lots of new staff at the hospital this year, and to them this is a service they do for the community. They don’t expect anything in return.”

Email Pelletier at yvonne.pelletier204@gmail.com for more information, including donation opportunities.