Bloom Foundation directors Tina Searcy (third from right, standing, and Amy Novakovski (second from right), along with their kids Dutch Novakovski and Charley Searcy (both of whom spent time in the Royal University Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) shortly after they were born), present a cheque in the amount of $56,100 to the staff of the NICU on Wednesday, June 28
A donation of $56,100 to the Royal University Hospital (RUH) Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) will help keep parents connected with their newborns receiving treatment at the facility.
The donation from the Bloom Foundation will be used to purchase specialized web cameras for several incubators in the 38-bed unit for gravely-ill premature and newborn babies. Parents of the newborns will be able to access live-stream images from the cameras through a privacy-protected phone app. The ‘Nicview’ cameras are designed to allow parents to monitor their babies, even when they’re not physically present at the hospital.
The NICU has already purchased ten of the Nicview cameras using funds from previous Bloom donations. The ten wireless cameras are slated to be installed in late July, and operational sometime in August, according to NICU Manager Adele Riehl. Continue reading “Bloom donation funds keep families connected with sick newborns”→
Tina Searcy (left) and Amy Novakovski talked about their sixth annual “Bloom: An Evening of Love” fundraiser for the NICU as the room at the Travelodge filled up on May 13
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) holds a special place in many people’s hearts. Amy Novakovski and Tina Searcy are two of those people who found themselves depending on the NICU at a critical time. Each has a small graduate of NICU who is now about five or six years old.
Gratitude is a powerful motivator and these women channeled theirs into the successful and growing fundraiser, “Bloom: an Evening of Love.” This year’s dinner was hosted by Julie Mintenko of Global News and took place May 13 at the Travelodge Hotel. It’s a gala evening with a lot going for it – Continue reading “Newborns given chance to ‘Bloom’ at NICU”→
Charlie (left) and Dutch are graduates of NICU at RUH
Two pint-sized ‘graduates’ of the NICU helped present a $51,000 cheque from ‘Bloom: An Evening of Love’ to the unit on Monday at Royal University Hospital (RUH). Their moms are co-event directors for ‘Bloom’ and were pleased to hand over the results of the fund raising efforts.
“We’re absolutely thrilled,” said Amy Novakovski,founder of Bloom. “We had always hoped to hit the $50,000 mark and to hit it in our fifth year is phenomenal. It’s very, very exciting.”
Novakovski launched Bloom after her son, Dutch, needed the care of NICU. “They gave me my baby boy. And now he’s doing wonderful.” Bloom is her way of giving back.
Co-event director Tina Searcy shares a similar experience. Her daugher Charlie was born two months premature. The emotions attached to Charlie’s perilous 12 days in NICU are still close to the surface for Searcy. She joined Bloom a year after it was launched.
“We exceeded our initial expectations by far,” said Searcy. “Over five years we’ve donated just over $140,000 to NICU in Saskatoon.”
Over 300 guests attended the May fund-raising gala at the Travelodge. The event has sold out each year and sought expanded venues each year. Searcy said sponsorship is key. “We grew in sponsorship from 14 sponsors last year to 27 this year.” Bloom has maintained and added some exciting new corporate sponsorships, and hopes to continue to grow the event.
RUH staff assembled to received the cheque. Adele Riehl, manager of nursing at RUH said the cheque for $51,000 was another great donation. “It’s wonderful, every year it’s more. I was shocked to hear how much they raised this year.”
Riehl said while basic equipment is covered in their budget, there are many enhancement needs for the unit that
Bloom: an Evening of Love raised $51,000 for NICU
are not covered. She said they’ve been working hard in the past couple of weeks, reviewing their equipment needs for the new Children’s Hospital
“We’ve been identifying things that we will be bringing with us and not bringing with us. We’re really going to be conscious about how we spend this money and make sure we get something that we’re going to be bringing with us to the new hospital. This is a huge piece of money so it will be great to have something that we will be able to bring with us, and that we’ll be able to say, ‘this is where we got it from’.”
Novakovski said Bloom may have a couple of ideas for allocating the funds based on what they’ve seen implemented in other NICU’s in Canada. “This year we’ll maybe make a suggestion for a couple of different things we’d like to see our NICU be able to house. Stay tuned.”
