Comfort birds before and after carving is done (Submitted photo/Al Jardine)

By Ben Tompkins

Northern Lights Woodcarvers

Local group donates comfort birds to cancer patients across the province

Oct 3, 2022 | 5:38 PM

The Northern Lights Woodcarvers have carved over 2,700 comfort birds that have been donated to cancer clinics across Saskatchewan.

The Melfort group has mainly donated to Regina and Saskatoon; however, they have also donated to patients in Melfort.

Carver Al Jardine told northeastNOW his fellow carvers felt it was an important cause to contribute to, one that anyone can relate to.

“They kind of thought it was a good idea because we’ve all had people that are somehow touched with cancer in our family, somewhere along the line.”

“It’s nice to know that we are being a spark of light in somebody’s day. They don’t go in there having good days on their mind, they’re having some terrible thoughts going through their heads and if we can offer a little bit of comfort, then that’s great.”

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Currently, the group takes roughly 50 to 60 birds a month, just to the clinic in Saskatoon.

According to Jardine, there are roughly 30 chairs in there and they are always full of patients.

“No matter what time of the day, there are 30 people that are coming and going through that cancer clinic and when you start adding the numbers up, it’s phenomenal. We aren’t even touching the surface of the number of cancer patients that are in the province.”

With that in mind, Jardine mentioned while reaching everyone is a bit of a pipe dream, there’s no harm in trying.

“Even though we’ve done 2,700, we haven’t even begun to touch the surface of the number of cancer patients that are out there. We know we (likely) can’t give everybody one, but we’re going to try and get as many as we can.”

And not only is this a great cause, but it’s a great way to try and get into woodcarving.

Jardine explained it’s not as hard as it looks.

“We’ve kept the shape and the style simple so that a novice carver can sit down and load up a comfort bird and feel good about it and produce a fairly good product.”

The organization is set to meet Monday nights at the Kerry Vickar Centre to continue the ongoing project.

Jardine said anyone is welcome to come on down for a lesson and donate their time or money towards the birds.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8