Home Depot and Red Cross come through for suffering family
For Lisa Berard's family, the thick smoke that clogged Kelowna and surrounding area this summer was more than an incovenience or an irritant-it was a life-threatening event. Two of Berard's three children have asthma, as does she. As the smoke from the enormous Okanagan Mountain fire thickened, their suffering increased.
"They struggled so much to breathe at night, and hardly slept. I have never been so scared of losing both my kids," she says, her voice cracking with emotion. Despite drastic increases to the boys' medication and an attempt to move them to a less smoky area, their asthma didn't improve.
Berard knew a hepa filter system might help, but the expense put that out of range. After days of seeking a solution and countless frustrating phone calls, Berard called the Red Cross in Kelowna and spoke with Operations Manager Ian Pike, who listened to her situation and promised to see what he could do.
Red Cross contacted its disaster partner, Home Depot, in Kelowna and found them only too happy to help. Pike was able to call Berard back and confirm that Home Depot would provide not one but two quality hepa filters, free of charge. Within a few hours of getting the filters up and running, Berard noticed an improvement in the boys. That night, their breathing was so much better that they slept through the night while their mother kept a vigilant watch. The next morning, when she checked their breathing scores, she saw a marked improvement for the first time in ages.
"When I saw their scores were up, I just burst into tears I was so grateful," Berard says. "I really appreciate the help from Red Cross and the Home Depot. You guys saved my kids lives!"
