There was no time to rest Friday at Blue Cross Park.
Instead of the usual crack of wooden baseball bats normally heard at the downtown stadium, there were sounds of wood being cut, stained and transformed into children’s beds at a feverish pace.
More than 70 volunteers from the ballpark’s naming sponsor and charitable organization Sleep in Heavenly Peace joined forces to create an assembly line that, when it was all over, had churned out 50 new beds for kids in need.
As the assembly line hummed at full speed, bed — replete with a special bedbug-repelling stain — was being completed about every 20 minutes.
Dallas McEvoy, a 14-year Manitoba Blue Cross employee, pitched the bed-building idea to the health-insurance company’s CEO Benjamin Graham after an emotional experience in November volunteering with Sleep in Heavenly Peace.
“I can’t explain it, it just hit me so hard; I can see myself doing this again for years,” said McEvoy, tearing up.
“I’ve seen foster mothers taking care of three kids, and they’re just so happy to be able to be helped out in this way.”
McEvoy said Manitoba Blue Cross was immediately onboard. And when the event was announced, so many people volunteered that organizers had to turn people away.
“I was overwhelmed with how many people wanted to volunteer,” he said. “Next time we do another build, we’ll give everyone a chance to participate.”
Because he grew up sharing a bed with his sister, McEvoy said witnessing a delivery for one of the charity’s recipients made a big impact on him.
“You don’t think about it when you’re growing up,” he said. “I think you don’t realize until much later the circumstances that you’re in.”
He said his experience growing up drives him to do charity work, so he can give people a boost who are in circumstances similar to those he was in.
Manitoba Blue Cross and Sleeping in Heavenly Peace collected donations of bedding and building materials ahead of Friday’s assembly marathon and will be delivering the fruits of their labour to all of the recipients on July 6.
Toni Randinone was at one station, marking boards for holes to drilled by someone at the next stage in the line. She said she’s happy volunteer for a great cause.
“I want to see every child have a bed and be as comfortable as I am. It’s heartbreaking to see a child not have a bed,” she said.
Sleeping In Heavenly Peace estimated that there’s as many as 4,000 Winnipeg kids who don’t have their own bed. The organization currently has 500 families on its wait list.
Retired police officer Jim Thiessen is the multinational charity’s chapter president in Winnipeg, which he launched in 2019. His police experiences entering homes in the city had an influence on him.
“You couldn’t help but see the children sleeping (in terrible) conditions,” he said. “As a parent myself, it was agonizing because you couldn’t do anything about that when you’d leave the home, and you know that there’s a situation that needed to be addressed.”
He said the charity receives calls directly from families, along with teachers, first responders and child-welfare agencies.
“When we go and install the bed afterwards, we’re able to see the smile on the child’s face or the tears in the parents’ eyes, because they realize someone has taken the time to actually give something to them. It means a lot to these people,” Thiessen said, adding this was the largest build the charity has done thus far in Winnipeg.
McEvoy said he hopes Manitoba Blue Cross will organize another event like this one next year. And he said he’d like to address the needs of kids in northern Manitoba communities, too.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca