Barrhead Healthcare Auxiliary

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Barrhead Healthcare Auxiliary

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We raise funds and provide hands-on support for both the Barrhead Healthcare Centre and Dr. W. R. Keir Barrhead Continuing Care Centre.

Volunteer-driven since 1929, we raise funds and provide comfort, equipment, and care so Barrhead patients, residents, and families receive healthcare that feels local, personal, and compassionate. About Barrhead Healthcare Centre Auxiliary
💙 About Barrhead Healthcare Centre Auxiliary
The Barrhead Healthcare Centre Auxiliary is a volunteer-driven nonprofit supporting health, dignity, and comfort for patients and residents in Barrhead and area. Our goal is simple: to help make healthcare feel more personal, more compassionate, and more community-powered. From specialized medical equipment to new furniture, cozy comfort items, or small facility upgrades that make a big difference—every dollar donated stays local. That means your support goes directly to benefit your neighbours, family members, and friends receiving care right here at home.

✨ What We Support:
Barrhead Healthcare Centre – Medical upgrades, patient tools, family comforts

Barrhead Continuing Care Centre – Resident care, palliative support, home-like amenities

Cancer Clinic & Palliative Rooms – Quality of life enhancements, specialized beds, blanket warmers

Physician Sleep Rooms & Staff Areas – Supporting healthcare providers on-call

Ella’s Garden Courtyard – A peaceful outdoor space for healing and connection

🤝 How You Can Help:
Donate – Big or small, your gift makes a local impact

Volunteer – From gardens to raffles, your time matters

Partner With Us – Community sponsors help us do more

Give in Memory – Honour someone you love with a meaningful tribute

We are always looking for new members, volunteers, donors, and partners who care about healthcare in our region. Whether you contribute once, monthly, or lend your hands to help, you are making a lasting difference.

📍 Proudly serving Barrhead and surrounding communities
💯 100% of donations stay in the community
💙 Supporting care that feels like home

10/06/2026

Did you catch the rainbow on your way to work this morning? At 7:57, it appeared over Keir Care—and from this angle, seemed to hover right above the residents’ bus. Alongside it, a few minutes later, the morning sun lit up the brick building and golden trees against a blue-grey sky. Two lovely glimpses of autumn here in Barrhead. 🌈🍂

That familiar white bus deserves a little appreciation of its own. It provides transportation for residents, helping them get where they need to go and stay connected with the community around them. It’s a practical part of resident life, with care behind its purpose.

Custom-built in 2009, the bus was designed around the needs of the people travelling aboard. From the steps and doors to the seating arrangement, those details were considered with residents in mind. It’s easy to see a vehicle parked outside and give little thought to everything it helps make possible.

With Thanksgiving approaching, we’re grateful for that support and for the people whose work and care keep residents moving through their days. The beautiful autumn light around Keir Care gave us a reason to pause this morning—and appreciate what’s there all year.

From the Barrhead Healthcare Centre Auxiliary, warm Thanksgiving wishes to Keir Care’s residents, families, staff and volunteers.

Small Town. Big Hearts. Caring for our neighbors, wherever the day takes them. 💛

09/22/2026

**“I Know My Way.” — Meet Road to Home Driver Lorna Gramlich**

Sixteen months ago, Lorna Gramlich was visiting with her friend Alice when the conversation turned to Road to Home.

Lorna listened and thought, *You know what? I can do that.*

She knew the route into Edmonton. She knew her way around the Cross Cancer Institute. And from appointments of her own, she knew what it meant to have family and friends willing to drive her when she needed them.

Now she could be that person for someone else.

Since becoming a Road to Home volunteer driver, Lorna has come to appreciate the people she meets along the way. “It’s essential for people going through this,” she says. “If I can help them get there, then I’m going to do that.”

Cancer has a way of placing appointments and travel into the middle of everyday life. Lorna believes in helping people negotiate that road while still holding on to the ordinary things that make life feel like their own.

Over repeated trips, unfamiliar faces become familiar ones. Conversation comes more easily, shared miles create connection and, sometimes, friendship becomes one of the unexpected perks of sharing the road.

For Lorna, that human connection is one of the quiet rewards of volunteering. She helps someone reach essential care, meets people she may never otherwise have known and adds something meaningful to her own life at the same time.

“It’s a great program,” she says. “The more drivers we have, the more people we can help.”

More drivers also means the trips can be shared among the team. One person does not have to carry the full driving load, and each volunteer can contribute in a way that works with their own schedule.

Lorna began with one straightforward thought: *I can do that.*

Sixteen months later, she is still doing exactly that—helping people get where they need to go and bringing them home again. 💙

Interested in joining the Road to Home volunteer driving team? Contact Violet Schriever at **780-282-0152**.

**Small Town. Big Hearts.**
**The road is part of the care.**

09/15/2026

Darlene Slepanski Braucht has not taken her first Road to Home trip yet. She begins driving in November—but she already knows why she wants to be there. 💙

As retirement approaches, Darlene is looking forward to a new kind of freedom: the chance to spend more of her life doing the community-minded things she has always hoped there would one day be time for. This is more than finding something to keep busy. It is an opportunity to choose something meaningful, meet new people and put her time where it can genuinely help.

The idea found her through the stories of Road to Home’s volunteer drivers shared here on Facebook. As Darlene read their profiles, that familiar thought—I would like to do something like that when I retire—began to feel less like a someday idea and more like a real possibility. She contacted Violet, signed up and became Road to Home’s newest driver.

Darlene understands how illness can suddenly make ordinary things much harder. Distance, access to a vehicle and the physical limitations of cancer treatment can all stand between a person and the care they need. Being able to remove one of those barriers—and one of the worries attached to it—is exactly the kind of help she wants to offer.

Her first trip is still ahead, so Darlene has no driving stories to share with us yet. What she does have is excitement, motivation and the willingness to begin. She is looking forward to meeting the people who will travel with her and discovering all that this next road may add to her own life as well.

For anyone reading our driver profiles and quietly wondering, Could I do this? Darlene’s answer comes easily:

“Do it. Absolutely do it. Take the chance and jump in with both feet.”

Welcome to Road to Home, Darlene. November will bring your first passenger and your first trip—but choosing to take the wheel was the beginning of the journey. 🚙💙

Small Town. Big Hearts. And one more caring person ready to take the wheel.

09/12/2026

The cheque in front tells one story. The women gathered behind it tell another. 💙

September brought the Barrhead Healthcare Centre Auxiliary together for our first meeting back after the summer break—and it didn’t take long for the familiar rhythm to return.

There were reports to share, questions to settle, plans to shape and plenty of catching up tucked between the official business. Around the table, summer quickly gave way to a new season of caring for our hospital, patients and community.

Many people see the finished results: added comfort for patients, support for local healthcare workers, nursing scholarships, Road to Home rides and projects that make our healthcare spaces a little warmer. The beginning is quieter. It looks like volunteers gathering around a table, sharing what they know and deciding what they can do next.

The Casual for a Cause cheque presentation gave us a rare opportunity to gather nearly everyone close enough for a photograph. Behind that $680 gift stands a group already thinking beyond one presentation and toward the work waiting in the months ahead.

Every woman brings something different to the Auxiliary—experience, practical knowledge, community connections, willing hands and the occasional well-timed opinion. Together, those individual contributions become the steady work that keeps good ideas moving.

Summer break is officially over. The Auxiliary is back at the table, and a fresh season of Caring For Our Community has begun.

Small Town. Big Hearts. And the women who keep both in motion. 💙

09/12/2026

👕 Have you been to our Pembina West Co-op in Barrhead on a Friday and spotted one of these burgundy T-shirts?

There’s a little magic stitched into it. It doesn’t arrive by owl—it begins with a loonie.

Through Pembina West Co-op’s Casual for a Cause program, participating employees contribute $1 of their own money each week. When Friday arrives, their regular uniform shirts get the day off and the colourful Casual for a Cause T-shirts come out.

At first glance, it looks like Casual Friday. Behind the shirt is a grassroots giving program quietly gathering those weekly dollars and returning them to local communities.

One loonie feels small in your hand. Give it a purpose, repeat it every Friday and bring a whole team into the idea—and pocket change becomes community change.

That steady, one-dollar-at-a-time generosity became a $680 donation to Road to Home.

For cancer patients across Barrhead, Westlock, Mayerthorpe, Whitecourt and surrounding rural communities, treatment can come with a long road attached. Road to Home connects patients with caring volunteer drivers who help them reach cancer treatments and related medical appointments—and return safely home again.

This gift will travel. It will become kilometres driven, appointments reached and one less worry for people already carrying more than enough.

Every dollar was contributed by participating Pembina West Co-op employees and gathered through their Social Committee. Together, they have shown exactly what can happen when a workplace gives one simple idea room to grow.

On behalf of the Barrhead Healthcare Centre Auxiliary and everyone whose journey is made easier through Road to Home, we offer our heartfelt thanks to the Pembina West Co-op team.

And perhaps the next generous idea begins in another workplace, community group or circle of friends wondering what their own small contributions could accomplish together.

The next time you see one of these shirts on a Friday, you’ll know what it carries: care for the community, one loonie at a time.

Small Town. Big Hearts. Generosity that knows the way home. 💙

09/11/2026

🚙 **Our Road to Home driver profiles are back—and Karen Bouman is a wonderful reminder of just how far one willing hand can reach.**

For Karen, giving back is simple at heart: when someone needs a hand, you offer yours.

“Road to Home is near and dear to my heart,” Karen says. “It’s important for people to give back to their community if they can.”

When Karen talks about helping someone through cancer treatment, she brings it down to one thing.

“People have so much on their minds at that time,” she explains. “If you can take away one thing—just one thing—it makes such a difference.”

That one thing might be the worry of getting to treatment or the strain of one more expense. From the outside, providing a ride may appear to be a small, practical kindness. From inside a cancer journey, having someone step forward and say, *Let me carry this part for you,* can feel enormous.

Karen knows that from a mother’s point of view, too. Her daughter is a cancer survivor, and Karen witnessed how completely treatment can fill the thoughts of both the person facing it and the family walking beside them. She saw how every worry lifted could create a little more room to breathe.

When Karen moved away from Barrhead, her Road to Home work simply found a new route. She now helps people living in her surrounding area make the trip into Barrhead when distance, transportation or illness would otherwise make reaching treatment feel overwhelming.

And what has Karen carried home from her time as a driver?

“Friendships.”

By being that gentle, reassuring face during a difficult time, Karen has formed connections that extend beyond the person in the passenger seat to include their families. Some of those connections have even circled back into her life later. The drive had a destination; the friendship kept travelling.

Her advice to anyone thinking about becoming a Road to Home driver is wonderfully direct:

“Do it. Take the leap. Make the difference. You will never regret it. You are giving—and it means the world to them.”

For Karen, the gift may begin with a drive. What it carries is far greater.

💙 **Small Town. Big Hearts. One less worry can mean the world.**

09/10/2026

Home, James!

Jim stopped by the Barrhead Cancer Centre today wearing his JAMES cap—and Violet knew immediately that his Road to Home passengers would get a blast out of seeing him in it.

There was only one possible response:

Home, James! 😄

Jim is one of our Road to Home volunteer drivers. With the cap, the grin and his willingness to join in the fun, he brings a little levity to a journey that can use it.

Thank you, Jim, for the trips you make, the smiles you bring along for the ride, and for helping each passenger travel the road back home. 💙

Small Town. Big Hearts.
Have hat - Will travel.

09/04/2026

🎓✨ Back to school feels a little lighter when part of the financial load has already been lifted.

This fall, the five recipients of the Dr. B. Bose Nursing Scholarship are returning for their second year of nursing education—with scholarship support helping them continue toward careers in healthcare.

Syndey Visser, Jayleana Baron and Esther Knapp are pursuing their RN training, while Mackenzie DeVries and Kimberly Dayag are pursuing their LPN training.

Each cheque represents more than financial assistance. It means a little less worry about tuition and school expenses, and more room to focus on classes, clinical training and the important work ahead. 📚🩺

As these five women head back to school, they carry with them the continuing legacy of Dr. Bireswar Bose—and the encouragement of a community that believes in their future.

Congratulations, Syndey, Jayleana, Kimberly, Esther and Mackenzie! We are proud to support your next year of learning, growing and preparing to care for others. 💙

Small Town. Big Hearts. Five futures in motion. ✨

Address

4815 51 Avenue
Barrhead, AB
T7N1L3

Website

http://barrheadauxiliary.com/, https://www.zeffy.com/en-CA/fundraising/d72d1396-28a9-4ed0-9a78-fc07d5ea6aca

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