Kelowna General Hospital honours Moms with touching video

A touching tribute to mothers in the Okanagan has been created as a way to encourage children to give their mother's a different kind of Mother's Day gift.

The video was created as part of a Mother’s Day campaign for Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) and features some well-known Okanagan faces including Kelowna-Mission MLA Steve Thomson, Olympic skier Kelsey Serwa and local generational family, the Nixon’s.

The video is asking Okanagan residents to honour their mothers this Mother’s Day by donating to the Giving Giggles campaign in support of the perinatal care unit at KGH. Those featured in the video hold written messages about sharing a gift that will help those who will soon become mothers themselves.

“Because you have given me a world full of love, I want to give a little back,” the video story reads.

The video is encouraging residents of Kelowna to donate to the maternity wing at KGH this Mother’s Day. Every dollar raised will go to the new perinatal unit at Kelowna General Hospital.

The new perinatal unit opened in March 2016, holding five private labour and delivery rooms, along with nine private and four semi private postpartum rooms. The ward also has a brand new neonatal intensive care unit, which will support up to 20 babies.

“We’ve never done anything like this before,” said KGH Foundation Director, Doug Rankmore, whose two daughters make an appearance in the video.

“It’s really heart-warming to see. Not only are these people our children, our friends, our neighbours, they are our doctors and our nurses too. The project really shows that we all have a stake in creating world-class care for our community’s new moms and babies.”

The Giving Giggles campaign began in the fall of 2015 and aims to raise $3 million dollars to fund continuing care for the perinatal unit at KGH.