OLDS – The Aggies Club at the Olds College of Agriculture & Technology has made a $4,800 donation to the Calgary Firefighters Burn Treatment Society (CFBTS).
Aggies president Jenna Meyers says that society is close to Aggies members’ hearts.
“The burn society hits very close to home for the Olds Aggie students, as we had a past member get into an incident, and he needed help from there,” Meyers told the Albertan, adding that the club has been donating to the CFBTS for a few years.
A mock wedding the club staged earlier this year in partnership with the Olds Regional Exhibition (ORE) at the Cow Palace helped generate the funds for the donation.
The evening included live performances from a couple of country artists and the college sponsored a ride home service.
The mock wedding itself has been held since 2016, but this is the first year that the Aggies have volunteered and held it at the Olds Regional Exhibition.
“I think it's went really well,” Meyers said.
“This is the biggest mock wedding we've had so far, and it turned out way bigger and better than I think we had originally thought for it being our first year, and we're really excited to have events with the ORE for this upcoming year as well.”
Meyers said the mock wedding will likely continue to be staged annually.
“It's a pretty big staple, and I know a lot of new students really look forward to it,” she said.
However, Meyers said the club is considering holding some kind of fundraiser in the fall as well.
CFBTS vice-president Todd Nabozniak is grateful for the donation.
“I don't even know how to thank them enough,” he said.
Nabozniak said in addition to supporting burn care and burn prevention, the society is working with the Alberta Children's Hospital and donating $300,000 over the next three years to building up the children's burn unit.
The group also supports the Alberta Children's Burn Camp.
“The Edmonton burn society runs the camp, but we donate every year a very large amount of money to go,” Nabozniak said.
“We let the kids thrive in an environment with other burn kids, because a lot of times kids don't get to play with people similar to them, and they get withdrawn and everything.
“We found that this burn camp is just an amazing time for them to come out of their shell and deal with their burns and learn to function in society again as they grow older.”
The CFBTS also sent all of their burn survivors to a conference.
“We sent a delegation from our southern Alberta area to help with mental health and survivor care through just basically learning how to deal with scars and stuff like that,” he said.
