A family who felt love and support from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the Foothills Hospital is continuing their support, especially for families served by the facility.

The Mail brought readers the story of Lonnie and Korilee Farmer in its April 2, 2014 edition. The family was doubly blessed with twins on May 11 of 2013, at just over 24 weeks into the pregnancy. That began an emotional journey for the family. They lost one of their sons, Marek, but Cohen battled on with the help of the dedicated NICU staff, doctors and nurses. After 131 days, the family was able to come home.

They will be forever grateful to the NICU and later showed their appreciation by staging a fundraiser, called One Night For NICU. The dinner and silent auction last April took on a life of its own and was wildly successful. It sold out right way and in all, raised over $24,845.

In addition, the family began a tradition of participating in the Mother’s Day Walk, Run and Ride in Calgary.  They used this event to continue their fundraising efforts. At the end of the day their participation, along with One Night For NICU raised $37,208.

“We set a goal of $15,000 to see if we could raise that, so we were quite pleased,” said Lonnie, adding they are grateful for the individuals and businesses in Drumheller, Hanna and surrounding area that supported the event.  

He said the fundraiser and the campaign that supported it, also raised awareness.

“We had probably a dozen calls, from people who were in a similar situation where they needed the NICU and wanted to give back,” said Lonnie. “We got phone calls from people we never met before.  We listened to their stories and filled them in on our story. The response was overwhelming.”

The family is continuing their support through the Mother’s Day Walk, Run and Ride in Calgary coming May 10. This is also when they celebrate Cohen’s birthday.

“We want to get our kids involved and make it an annual thing for our family,” said Lonnie. “We are just trying to raise awareness and raise as much money as we can. We are a couple young parents and this is how we want to give back.”

The family has a specific goal for the funds they raise, and that is to improve the experience of families going through difficult times with children in the NICU.

Lonnie explains that at the NICU there are a couple suites for families. These are often used before a child is released from the unit to allow the family to have a trial run before going home. The rooms are also utilized when a baby is extremely sick and the parents need to stay overnight. 

Currently, these room-in suites are stark, single-bed hospital rooms.  The family thought they could use some work.  “We are redoing both rooms top to bottom,” said Lonnie. “We want to make them more comfortable to ease back into life. Instead of it looking like just another hospital room, we want to refurbish and make it more homey.”

He says they are going to upgrade everything from fixtures and plumbing to beds and furniture. The rest of the funds will be put into a fund for specialized equipment. The Farmer family got the ball rolling by meeting with the manager at the unit, and has gained support from Alberta Health Services.

“Our main goal is to make your last night at NICU feel like home, it bridges from going to a hospital bed to your own bed,” he said.

To support the family on their quest, go to www.mdrunwalkride.com, select the Calgary event and search for Farmer under the “make a pledge” link. For more information or to make a donation in person, call Lonnie or Korilee at 403-823-9720.

With the release of Alberta’s provincial budget late last week, Drumheller-Stettler MLA and Wildrose Opposition member Rick Strankman is disappointed at the tax burden to Albertans in the budget presented by the Progressive Conservative government.

“Flabbergasted,” is the word the MLA said best sums up his reaction to the provincial budget.

“As an Albertan, I’m dismayed that at the behest of this government, we’re spending this much on taxation. It’s a complete embarrassment as far as I’m concerned.”

Strankman said Wildrose investigations into the budget show  59 levels of new tax, everything from land titles to registries to as much as 35 per cent increases in fine levies, but he was uncertain how that was split between traffic and vehicle violations and civil violations.

"But the flat tax is gone, that’s $793 million bucks right there for an increase.”

He said with the tax grab on vehicle gasoline, perhaps a slot should just be added at the gas pumps for Albertans to deposit a five dollar bill every time they fill their vehicle. The province added a four cent per litre tax to gasoline in the new budget.

In response to concerns or rumors this is a pre-election budget, Strankman said, “Why all the fanfare over something that’s not going to be approved? You’re playing with Albertans lives here.”

He notes 28 million dollars has been set aside in this year’s budget for Elections Alberta, and he doesn’t know when a provincial election will be called. As of press time, the Progressive Conservatives had not called an Alberta election.

In response to critics that say the PC party has mismanaged Albertans money, the MLA said a northern Alberta newspaper shared a previous quote by the province’s now Finance Minister Robin Campbell who said unfortunately when times are good, the governing party tends to spend like drunken sailors. Strankman said when oil was at $107 per barrel, the province still wasn’t putting any money away, they were still doing deficit budgeting, and to him that means they thought oil prices were going to climb even higher than the $107.

Strankman said the opposition parties are unable to critique the budget in the legislature as Alberta’s Legislative Assembly is now on a break until April 13.

“Municipally, we didn’t do that bad. It could have been a lot worse,” Drumheller’s Mayor Terry Yemen said of the provincial budget. The Town will receive an unexpected $67,000 from an operating grant they thought would be eliminated but remained unchanged. 

“There’s a significant amount of money that’s been set aside for flood mitigation and I’ve already reached out to our MLA and suggested the Town of Drumheller has been patient long enough. We’ve waited, and God Bless them, there’s lots of damage done in Calgary and High River, but it looks like that’s the only mitigation the province has done so far.” 

Drumheller has a flood mitigation grant application into the Province, filed last fall, for $12 million dollars. The original notification date from the province of December was pushed back, and the Town of Drumheller is still waiting to hear, along with a number of other communities in the Red Deer River Basin as well as across Southern Alberta.