Throughout the past six years, an incredible group of individuals have come together to help raise funds to go towards the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Royal University Hospital (RUH) in Saskatoon. On Wednesday, June 28th, Bloom co-founders and organizers, Amy Novakovski and Tina Searcy visited the NICU to present the staff with a cheque for $56,000, all of which was raised through the Bloom fundraiser and their ‘Images of Love’ campaign. Novakovski and Searcy brought their children Dutch Novakovski and Charley Searcy, who both spent time in the NICU after they were born.
The money raised from previous fundraisers went towards purchasing NICView Monitors, which will allow parents and other family members to see their baby in real time and participate with rounds, care of their infant, etc. on an external device when they cannot be there in person, allowing them to still be connected with the infants. RUH’s NICU department will be the very first unit within the country to have the NICView Monitors available for parents. This year’s donation will be used to purchase additional monitors, with the current ones expected to be installed this month and operational by August. “The Bloom Committee is thrilled with this amazing purchase and are grateful to see how excited everyone is for future NICU families! This is yet another reason why we do what we do year after year,” the group commented via the Bloomnicu Facebook page.
To date, the Bloom fundraiser has brought in over $198,000 and the dedicated group is already busy planning for next year’s event, which will be taking place May 5, 2018.
Note on featured image
Amy Novakovski (2nd from RIGHT) and Tena Searcy (3rd from RIGHT), along with their children Dutch Novakovski and Charley Searcy (holding cheque) presented the NICU staff with a cheque for $56,000 on Wednesday, June 28th. (Marcy Cross/MM)
