{"id":159971,"date":"2020-04-16T16:15:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T20:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=159971"},"modified":"2020-04-16T16:15:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T20:15:49","slug":"parade-honors-employees-uconn-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/04\/parade-honors-employees-uconn-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Parade Honors Employees of UConn Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

People have been honored with parades in Connecticut over the years for many different kinds of achievements and accolades. Military veterans, championship athletic teams and ethnic celebrations have all been feted in the proper way.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, it was time for the health care workers at UConn Health to be saluted with a parade in recognition of their heroic efforts in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

First responders from around the Farmington region, in addition to the UConn police and fire departments, circled around the main entrance of UConn Health with sirens and horns blaring to say \u201cThank You\u201d to the health care workers.<\/p>\n

The genesis of the parade was a phone call from Steve Hoffmann, the Director of Fire and Rescue Services for the town of Farmington, where the main campus of UConn Health is located, to UConn Deputy Fire Chief Chris Renshaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a great relationship with the Farmington Fire Department and they wanted to know if we were interested in doing this type of parade,\u201d says Renshaw. \u201cWe had been talking about it internally and Steve\u2019s call had the perfect timing. We said \u2018Let\u2019s do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Some assistance from the Division of Athletics resulted in both the live and costumed Husky mascot Jonathan making appearances.<\/p>\n

\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Members of UConn Fire and Police as well as other area departments held a parade in appreciation for healthcare professionals through the UConn Health main campus to honor those helping patients battle coronavirus. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Members of UConn Fire and Police as well as other area departments held a parade in appreciation for healthcare professionals through the UConn Health main campus to honor those helping patients battle coronavirus. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Members of UConn Fire and Police as well as other area departments held a parade in appreciation for healthcare professionals through the UConn Health main campus to honor those helping patients battle coronavirus. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Health care workers still on duty watching the parade. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Health care workers still on duty watching the parade. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Members of UConn Fire and Police as well as Farmington Center Fire, Tunxis Hose Company, East Farms Fire, West Hartford Fire, AMR Ambulance, Farmington PD held a parade in appreciation for healthcare professionals through the UConn Health main campus to thank and honor those helping patients battle coronavirus. April 15, 2020 (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Health care workers still on duty watching the parade. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Members of UConn Fire and Police as well as other area departments held a parade in appreciation for healthcare professionals through the UConn Health main campus to honor those helping patients battle coronavirus. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div>\"UConn<\/a>
UConn Health Parade<\/div>
Health care workers outside of UConn Health enjoy the parade. (Tina Encarnacion\/UConn Health photo)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

The parade provided a welcome and spirited break for the workers at UConn Health, some of whom watched it outside and others from offices and rooms of patients. There were cheers, happy screams, and even a few tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese employees are extremely self-motivated, they are doing this because this is why they got into this profession,\u201d says Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, the CEO of UConn Health and Executive Vice President for Health Affairs. \u201cBut, of course it’s nice to be recognized for coming in every day and risking your own health to take care of the people of Connecticut.”<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope was to provide a brief, but much needed, outlet for the folks that are on the front line,\u201d says Renshaw. \u201cThey are dedicating an enormous part of their professional lives, and large amounts of their personal lives, battling the coronavirus in health care settings from the ICU to the Outpatient Pavilion to the organizations that are going to patients’ homes and bringing them to the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following first responder groups took part in the parade: UConn Police Department; UConn Fire Department; Connecticut State Police; Farmington Police Department; Farmington Center Fire Department; East Farms Fire Department (Farmington); Tunxis Hose Company (Farmington); Avon Fire Department; Canton Fire Department; Simsbury Police Department; Simsbury Fire Department; West Hartford Police Department; West Hartford Fire Department; Unionville Fire Department; and American Medical Response, Inc.<\/p>\n

“We are just overwhelmed by the kindness that has been expressed by everyone around,” says Kerri King, a nurse at UConn Health. “It really makes a difference, it keeps you working hard. It’s not just the doctors and nurses that we should recognize. We are recognizing all our health care people \u2026 people that are still working in the cafeterias \u2026 it\u2019s the housekeepers, people working in delivery\u2026everyone.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThis moment of unity provided a brief break in the repetitive and long hours of patient care,\u201d says Renshaw. \u201cI want to thank all of our fellow first responders that took part in the parade. No one is alone in this battle. UConn Student Health and Wellness and UConn Student Affairs are all doing amazing work. \u00a0We are truly one UConn Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First responders circled around the main entrance of UConn Health with sirens and horns blaring to say \u201cThank You.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":159995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2213,2231,179,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2113],"class_list":["post-159971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-health-well-being","category-uconn-health","category-university-news","post_format-post-format-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-07 17:30:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159971"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160029,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159971\/revisions\/160029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/159995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159971"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=159971"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=159971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}