Emergency personnel and essential services held a drive-by tribute to health-care workers and frontline staff on Tuesday.
Jim Hennessy, manager of communications for the Saint John Police Force. said they had seen other police forces pay tribute to frontline hospital staff for COVID-19 actions in videos online and decided to do their own.
“We started the ball rolling late last week and we just kind of threw it out there to a few other emergency personnel organizations to gauge their interest,” he said.
“Of course they were all no problem, what do you need, and when do you need us there and how long do you need us to be there.”
Hennessy said in total almost 30 cars were involved in the parade. Members from the Saint John Police Force, Saint John Fire Department, Kennebecasis Regional Police Force, Hampton and Grand Bay-Westfield RCMP, Ambulance New Brunswick, the Department of Justice and Public Safety and the City of Saint John Works Department were all involved in the parade.
“The original plan was to just go out to the [Saint John] Regional Hospital, but in talking to some of the other groups that were involved, one of them mentioned that hey we’re going out to Millidgeville anyway and there’s two grocery stores out there, so why don’t we take a drive by and salute them as well,” he said.
Hennessy said it was touching that members of the hospital were out to thank the emergency personnel when the vehicles passed by.
“Amazing response from the community. I mean, everybody is self-isolating and keeping physical distancing going on, so the cares that we did drive by, they were honking their horns,” he said.
Hennessy said everyone was extremely careful to keep to physical distance and the entire experience was uplifting, despite the public at first wondering what was going on.
He said it was a strong community-building exercise and there might be a chance to do something like this again.
