Some were covered with facemasks, eyeshields, surgical gowns, gloves and booties — but it didn't hide the appreciation felt as a small convoy of service vehicles drove through Lac La Biche's W. J. Cadzow Hospital at lunchtime on Friday with horns honking and occupants waving.
Hospital staff who were available were called outside the building to hear the cheers and honks from workers with TC Energy as six of the local office's vehicles circled the patient drop-off area for the community's first organized appreciation drive-by. The line of white trucks made a similar procession to seniors and workers at the Points West Living facility and the LacAlta Lodge seniors' home.
John Salazar, TC Energy's manager for the Wood Buffalo area said the pipeline and power generation company — formerly TransCanada — wanted to show frontline workers, patients, seniors and community members the importance of coming together in challenging times. The first official appreciation convoy, Salazar hopes it encourages more companies, groups and individuals to do something similar.
"This is the first time our team has done this in this community. We understand that this is the first in the community — and we hope our visit triggers a wave, with more community and businesses to follow suit," he told the POST.
From a community perspective, Salazar said the appreciate drive-by is hoped to "show love ... and give energy" to the staff, patients and residents of the hospital and seniors' facilities. For the staff, he said the parade of trucks was to show appreciation for all the hard work.
"The health care team has been instrumental in continuing to provide care to our most vulnerable, often facing the biological hazards head on," he said. "We were hoping to show our appreciation and demonstrate that their hard work has not gone unnoticed by the community."
An essential service themselves, the gang from TC Energy was a little late for their planned noon procession due to work needed to keep the region's energy systems flowing.
"We had a team member run behind doing critical work on our compressors - we go as a team with no man behind, always," he said, adding that the team effort has received some positive feedback from healthcare and seniors assistance staff. "This was so well received by the team that we are already planning our next trip, probably in 3 weeks."
There is a link to video from the lunch-hour procession at www.lakelandToday.ca. Images are also on the Lac La Biche POST Instagram site.
