A group of truck and SUV owners on Vancouver Island volunteer to get healthcare personnel to work on time as a winter storm continues to make road conditions dangerous.
The private facebook group of more than 4,600 members was created in January 2020, but its drivers have been particularly busy this Christmas season amid heavy snowfall and extremely cold temperatures.
“I really, really, really don’t feel like I’m doing anything,” said Nanaimo resident Mark Don, who has offered free elevators to dozens of healthcare workers since Christmas.
“It is literally the joy of my life. They are amazing people … and we all have the same goal to help people, so why not help them … help others? “
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Members of the group, called ‘VI Toyota 4 × 4 & VIHA Staff Transportation’, post their location and availability on the Facebook page to connect with a healthcare worker in need of their services.
Don said his fiancee, sister and mother, who work in the health care system, first alerted him to the need for transportation. He joined the Facebook group in December and said the response from his “angel” passengers has been “astonishing.”
“As much as I am doing for them, they are also doing it for us – for our sanity, for keeping us optimistic,” he said.
“They are very grateful and make us feel that we are doing much more than we think.”
Daniel Spence, who also lives in Nanaimo, has been driving health workers this winter. He estimates that he has transported more than 130 in five days of volunteering from 3 a.m. to lunchtime.
It is a way of giving back to the people who saved his life, he told Global News.
“I had 37 broken bones and recently my second broken neck. I’m still around here and I’m just moving through Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, so if I can get them safely to work to help them, of course. “
Daniel Spence, a resident of Nanaimo, BC, estimates that he has transported about 130 healthcare workers to Vancouver Island in the past five days.
Facebook / Daniel Spence
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Members of the Facebook group maintain their vehicles to withstand winter conditions, Spence added, so it’s good to “put fuel into something useful, accomplish something, and help people.”
The break for healthcare workers is “more deserved,” he said, during a pandemic that has tested them in unimaginable ways.
“I don’t think they realize how much we appreciate them,” he said. “They don’t realize how difficult it is to do their job.”
Both Spence and Don said they will continue to offer rides in their vehicles as long as winter driving conditions and need persist.
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Reference-globalnews.ca