By Camas Frank ~
The Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center has some new visitors designed to comfort children entering the Emergency Room.
The SLO Blues Baseball team partnered with the SLO County Air Pollution Control District to gather nearly 100 lovable teddy bears to donate to children during their ER visits.
To incentivize both organizations they cooked up a fun-loving scheme to have the APCD donate two Teddy bears for each double play the Blues turned during their 2015 season’s campaign.
On Sept. 30, the two organizations delivered 94 bears to the youngsters, ages 3-12.
“Given our focus on families within the community,” SLO Blues General Manager Adam Stowe said, “this promotion was a natural fit. The two organizations in this endeavor could not have been more supportive. We’d like to sincerely thank them both for their flexibility and enthusiasm in helping to establish this program.”
The APCD may have a stake in the health of the youngsters that is less obvious than the staff caring for them at Sierra Vista, but the agency does have dog in the fight. After all, air quality wouldn’t matter if pollution didn’t make us humans awfully sick.
In years past, according to the APCD, air quality in SLO County has exceeded established standards for lead, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter.
Lead is a nasty pollutant on it’s own, linked to a variety of illnesses through breathing or ingesting it. Ozone and particulate matter tend to be especially bad for asthma sufferers.
The breathing ailment isn’t as common on the Central Coast as in other, more industrialized areas but particulate matter — especially dust from the Oceano Dunes — is SLO County’s own particular cross to bear. And the recent wild fires have exacerbated the problem.
The APCD staff prefers to think of their line of work protecting the health of local residents by, “preserving blue skies for a healthy community.” They took part in the Blues campaign to raise awareness, and their cute Penguin mascot posed with doctors, nurses and the Blues’ Blue Bull mascot (think Paul Bunyan’s blue ox, Babe) for a pic of the donation ceremony.
Sadly, the 94 bears will provide comfort for a small percentage of the children who end up in emergency care. The staff at Sierra Vista help an estimated 4,500 children each year.
Fortunately though, not all of them are in for a very long stay. Some may even get to attend a Blues game in the near future.
