The beige walls of the Children's Rehabilitation Services treatment rooms are now bursting with colour through the Smilezone support of sportscaster Ron MacLean and his wife Cari.
While the former Red Deerians now live in Ontario, they consider Red Deer to be their other home. They both grew up and went to school in this city.
"I see half my high school class is here," said MacLean on Wednesday, at a reception for a new and enlivened Children's Rehabilitation Services at Red Deer's 49th Street Community Health Centre.
The facility that provides speech, physical and occupational therapy for infants to 18-year-olds wasn't an uplifting environment before a Smilezone crew arrived in June to paint giant murals in the waiting room and two treatment spaces.
Now friendly bear faces in one room feature the same mouth positions that speech therapists are teaching kids who need to work on their enunciation. Depictions of a bicycle, gears and a ladder symbolize the movements kids are looking to improve through the physical and occupational therapy that's given in another space.
The MacLeans, who are friends with the charity's founders, had been making ongoing contributions to the Smilezone Foundation for years. They are glad to see their donations bringing smiles to Red Deer-area kids with health care needs.
Ron said he didn't realize his image, along with hockey logos, would be painted in the front lobby. Since each Smilezone project is different, he's pleased the organizers connected him and Cari to this Red Deer project. Ron added that he believes in "the power of a smile" to lift people up.
"It's super exciting and the artwork is stunning," added Cari.
Smilezone Foundation, based in their current hometown of Oakville, Ont., converts hospital rooms and other clinical settings where kids get health care treatments into more inviting, friendly and inspiring spaces.
Construction company owner Scott Bachly, who co-founded Smilezone with former NHL hockey player and two-time Stanley Cup champion Adam Graves, said these colourful conversions get great feedback from families as well as health care workers.
Bachly recalled that a nurse who gives kids needles at a hospital in Goderich, Ont. told him she now gets anxious children to count the painted birds and butterflies on the wall and before they know it, the needle is done.
Thomas Hope, manager for children's rehab for the southern half of Central Zone, has seen kids looking at the new wall murals with wonder and astonishment. Moms have also been calling their husbands to come down to see the MacLean murals in the waiting room, "so we are seeing a lot more dads," he added, with a chuckle.
While Children's Rehabilitation Services treats 2,000 kids a month and the number is growing. Hope would love for more central Albertans to become aware of the wide range of services the centre offers. Among the specialized equipment is a device that can read the eye movements of paralyzed children, and then interpret this into language to reveal what the child wants to say.
Hope said it would be sad if some families in the region could benefit from this device, but don't know it's available.
Since Red Deer has no children's hospital or children's clinics all of the services available between Calgary and Edmonton are at the 49th Street location.
Former client Nate Erza spoke at Wednesday's reception about how much he likes the new murals and how the centre has helped him. "When I first came here, I was hardly able to walk," due to chronic leg pain, said the emotional teen — and last weekend, he won three swimming medals.
