Jewish Students at Dalhousie Raise Money to Donate A MIKEY (AED)

A group of students at Dalhousie University raised $1500 to donate a MIKEY (defibrillator) to their school. Hillel of Atlantic Canada, the Jewish Students’ Association,  raised most of the money through a concert event with both students and professors taking part.

Hillel of Atlantic Canada hosted an unveiling event for the new AED last Friday. Naomi Rosenfeld, the organization’s director of Jewish student life, worked with two Jewish student societies on campus — Hillel Halifax and Israel on Campus — to identify an opportunity to give back to the Dal community.

She said they were guided by a Jewish value called “tikkun olamm,” which translated to English means repairing the world. “We discussed it as an organization and thought this would do a lot of good for the campus and a way to really give back to the community that really does so much for us,” said Rosenfeld.

The new AED device becomes the 28th defibrillator on campus maintained by the Office of Environmental Health and Safety. (Additional defibrillators are managed by Dal Security and Dalplex, as well as those used in the hospitals.) Stephen Ellis, Dalhousie’s health and safety officer, helped identify the location for the installation, noting that while there was already an AED in the Killam’s basement (to support IT staff), the main atrium was without a device.

And if you think the machines are mostly just for show, think again: Ellis says that AEDs on campus have been used twice in the past three years, both times successfully.

From Ryan McNutt, Dal News. Read the full article on their website.