Next Wavers collect hats and blankets for premature babies
Next Wavers from AFSCME Local 2047 (Ebensburg Center/Altoona Center) donated hats and blankets that they collected for premature babies in the Regional Intensive Care Nursery at the Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown.
The blankets cover the babies’ incubators at night because they can’t turn the lights off in the nursery. Sadly, some don’t survive and are known as “angel babies,” and the parents receive these hats and blankets in their memory.
Pictured left to right: Front row: Brooke Meyers holding Kendrick, Jennie Hicks holding Elliana, and Crissy Myers. Back Row: Danielle Stich, Steph Schenk, Dannie Mullen, Vee Lynch, Jeremy Yagoda, and Sister Carol Ann, who accepted the donation on behalf of the medical center.
“I told all of the Next Wave about this story and they upped their efforts to get even more hats and blankets made,” Local 2047 member Crissy Myers, who started this initiative, said.
“More family, friends and local unions got involved with donations of blankets and hats. The repeated sentiment I get from everyone is that they love the idea that they are making something with love for someone they will never meet, or a parent who has lost a child at birth will have a beautiful reminder of the child they still love and never able to watch grow.”
Local 2047 has one of the strongest Next Wave chapters in the country, and they exemplify what it means to pay it forward. Well done, sisters and brothers!