As frontline workers continue on the job during the pandemic, Torontonians have shown their appreciation to them with noisy applause every day.
Marie Persaud, a personal support worker at VHA Home Healthcare, fears for her family as she continues to work during the crisis.
“At the same time, I have to recognize that this is my job,” Persaud says. “This is what I love doing, helping people, and people really need us out there.”
Most clients are elders facing their own health battles and the importance of a personal support worker is to help them for they may have no one else.
As the public does their part in flattening the curve, many want to show their appreciation for these frontline workers like Persaud.
Torontionas have been creating Facebook pages to get the word out to cheer on frontliners whether they are health professionals, sanitation workers, grocery clerks, transportation employees, emergency service employees and the list goes on.
Friends Astrid Moulin and Oliv De Bregeas Laurenie started a Facebook page, Clapping: Thank you to Medical Personnel after they got the idea from speaking to their families in France.
As frontline workers are afraid for their own safety, they don’t have an option other than to work and so this event allows the city to show how much their work is appreciated, Moulin says.
After sharing to friends and family, more than 1,000 people joined the page from all over and participated in this act of appreciation.
It was important to spread this awareness and support to these workers for “they are all exposed and we want to say thank you,” Laurenie says. “Thank you for saving lives. Thank you for keeping us alive. Thank you for putting food on the table.”