Martha Perkins

Apr 14, 2024 | delta-optimist.com | Martha Perkins

When you become a cancer patient, it can feel as if your life is no longer your own. Suddenly, your weeks and months seem consumed by one appointment after another. An entire team of specialists becomes dedicated to helping you through the sometimes long and exhausting process of treatment and recovery. Getting to and from all these appointments adds another layer of anxiety. This is especially true for people who live far from treatment centres and don’t have many transportation options.

Apr 9, 2024 | delta-optimist.com | Martha Perkins

Nicola Robinson’s son Matthew is an “incredibly active” eight-year-old who loves playing soccer, hockey, and baseball. Without surgery to correct a club foot, however, chances are Matthew would have had to watch those games from the sidelines. Now his mother is worried that other children in Delta won’t get the essential help they need when they need it. The only paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Royal Columbian Hospital has announced she’s leaving at the end of this month.

Feb 29, 2024 | richmond-news.com | Martha Perkins

Finn Hanson is a February baby. Adley Buchanan is a March baby. But this year they are celebrating being born on the same day. Four years ago, they were born at the same hospital within hours of one another, yet on this year’s birthday, they will both be turning one. Or is it four? Or is it, as one mom says, four-ish? Neither Finn’s nor Adley’s parents were expecting Leap Year babies when they arrived at the Richmond Hospital just after the world had gone into pandemic lockdown in 2020.

Feb 28, 2024 | delta-optimist.com | Martha Perkins

Would you dare to wear a pink shirt? In 2007, a teenaged student in Berwick, Nova Scotia was bullied for making such a simple fashion choice. Upset that this had happened at their high school, two fellow students bought 50 pink t-shirts for friends to wear as a statement of solidarity. This simple yet effective act of kindness has evolved into a global phenomenon known as Pink Shirt Day. People around the world wear pink as a statement that bullying is not an acceptable form of behaviour.

Feb 27, 2024 | delta-optimist.com | Martha Perkins

It may be called Battle of the Badges, but its message is all about unity. Local firefighters and police officers will be facing off at the Sungod Arena in North Delta on Feb. 28 to help spread the message that, when it comes to how we should behave with one another, we’re all in this together. “We’re united in saying no to bullying,” says Delta Police Chief Neil Dubord of the annual Pink Shirt Day event.