An ocean paddle has been organized to honor individuals who died from COVID-19 and the nurses who cared for them.
The group Paddle Santa Barbara is staging “The Giving Grief a Place to Go” paddle at 11 a.m. Saturday at the boat launch at the Santa Barbara Harbor. The public is welcome to participate.
Donna Meissner-Davirro, one of the leaders for Paddle Santa Barbara, said she was contacted by nurses at Cottage Hospital about doing an event dedicated to the patients who lost their lives, their families and those who supported them.
“A paddle out in honor of lives lost and hearts broken. Safely acknowledging the losses to help move forward,” she said.
Meissner-Davirro and Paddle Santa Barbara organized fundraising paddles for Halloween and Christmas.
Nichol Des Jardins Clark, a clinical nurse at Cottage Hospital, wrote on the Paddle Santa Barbara Facebook page about what the paddle out means: “COVID has touched so many of us. As nurses, it’s so hard loving somebody for weeks and fighting for them and losing them and not being able to hold their families, or talk to them and grieve.
“We love them and then lose them, totally lose them because we were only family for a little bit and then they are gone, and we aren’t family and don’t know they’re real people. And the grief has no place to go.
“We can find it a place, however, and honor those lost and the ones who cared for them.”
Participants can use any mode of paddling: a stand-up paddleboard, a kayak, a row boat or a canoe. They must mask-up when gathering at the boat launch and follow social distancing on the water.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.