Helping SickKids remember their bravery, one container at a time

Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild member Ray Fenton stands with one of the containers destined for Toronto. Each container will be used to store children’s Bravery Beads, earned as a result of various procedures at The Hospital for Sick Children.

Hub Staff

When Port Elgin resident Sue Buckton was visiting her granddaughter Kyleigh at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, she came to learn about a special program run by Women's Auxiliary volunteers and the Child Life Specialists at the hospital.

The Bravery Bead program, which celebrated its 15th anniversary this year, allows children to collect a different bead for each procedure or event that happens to them over the course of their treatment.

Buckton said there are different beads that represent the many and varied events that can happen to a child. “You get them for everything you do,” she explained, “every surgery, every needle, every IV, any time you go to the hospital.”

Having seen posters at the hospital of children wearing their beads on necklaces Buckton said it hit home for her as to how much some children go through. “These beads would be going around their neck, touching the floor and coming back up again, and they're wearing 15 or 20 of these necklaces,” she said. “It sort of smacks you in the face and these beads are not big beads.”

Buckton mentioned the Bravery Bead program to Gary Maguire, a member of the local Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild and Maguire said the Guild had already been looking at a similar program called Beads of Courage, which originated in the United States, and was exploring the idea of creating wooden containers in which children could store their beads.

Maguire said that after his conversation with Buckton he contacted the Women’s Auxiliary at The Hospital for Sick Children and brought information of the Bravery Bead program to the Guild. “This is nice and local and it has meaning because there are kids going there from the local area,” said Maguire.

Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild president Carl Durance said that the Guild is currently running a pilot program to create the wooden containers. “This is a brand new project. Right now we're going to do 25 of these vessels for the Bravery Beads program at SickKids, and that's supported by the Women's Auxilliary, and if that goes over well we'll do more,” he said, adding that they would deliver the containers to the hospital later in June. “Then we'll get feedback from them and we've committed that we'll do up to another 25 by the end of this calender year if they view it positively.”

Durance said that unfortunately they do not have the capacity to create one for every child “but if this starts to blossom a little bit then we'll get the involvement of other Ontario guilds and try and get them encouraged into it as well because it's a good program.”

He said children at the hospital can receive hundreds, and in some cases even thousands, of beads. “So you can think of what happened to that poor little kid during their stay. What we're doing is providing a vessel for them to store all their beads in so it basically gives them, in some sense, a story line of what happened to them through all their procedures and it just gives a little bit of brightness. That’s why we're getting involved.”

The process the Guild is using to make the containers is called segmented turning, which several members of the Guild had not done before. “We thought this was a really neat way to get our members exposed to what segmented turning is. It's a whole field in the area of wood turning and you can do some pretty elaborate stuff.” Durance explained that little segments of wood are cut out at a particular angle so that when they are grouped together they form a ring. The rings are then stacked on top of each other. “Obviously by choosing different woods you can get different patterns,” he said.

The containers are made from between eight and 10 different types of hardwood. “There's no reason you couldn't do a vessel in pine, which is a softwood, but if it got dropped it would be more apt to mark. These are little kids so they're going to get dropped, so we want to build these fairly robust,” said Durance, adding that on average each container was made up of approximately 70 pieces of wood, although some had well over 100 pieces.

Port Elgin woodturner and Guild member Ray Fenton, whose Port Elgin shop was being used to create the containers, said that he had cut out 3,000 pieces of wood for the Guild to start making the containers. “They make them into rings, each ring has 12 segments, layer them and then turn them,” he said.

In an email to Saugeen Shores Hub, Bravery Bead Coordinator at The Hospital for Sick Children Judy Hurrell said they were “so appreciative” of the Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild's efforts to support the children.

She said that at the moment it had not been decided which children would receive the containers. “I can tell you that we hear many stories of children who have been here for years trying to get better and they may be the recipient,” she said. “I guess it will be on an individual basis but we know what these very brave children go through and if a box will brighten their day, they shall have one.”

Buckton said that Kyleigh, who was born with holes in her heart and received the support of the Saugeen Shores community late last year, had recently celebrated her first birthday and was doing really well. Kyleigh had undergone surgery in October. “She's doing fabulous. You'd never know this kid’s had surgery,” said Buckton. “She's happy and she’s healthy and she's gaining weight.”

Buckton praised both the Bravery Bead program and the Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild. “It's certainly a really good program and for the guys to want to participate and give these kids these little boxes, it's really neat,” she said.

“As a parent you want to keep [the beads] because it's such a big deal. I think when they get to be older they'll appreciate what they've been through and maybe help another kid.”

The containers are expected to be on display at Cathy's Flowers 'N Treasures in Port Elgin beginning on June 8 until they are taken to Toronto later this month.

The containers are made from between eight and 10 different types of hardwood with each one containing, on average, 70 pieces of wood, although some had well over 100 pieces.

Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild member Chuck Lamrock sands individual segments of wood.

On the left, Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild member Al Tamman creates rings by gluing segments of wood together. On the right, The Grey Bruce Woodturning Guild name has been lasered onto the underside of each lid.

On the left, teddy bears are just one way the children display their Bravery Beads. On the right, volunteer Joan stands with the bead cart. Children are granted certain beads for certain procedures. Photos submitted