Bernadine Boulet is the mother of Logan Boulet. Logan passed after sustaining a traumatic brain injury in the tragic Humboldt Bronco Junior Hockey Team bus crash in April 2018. Logan’s wish to be an organ and tissue donor was carried through by his family. His donations to save the lives of 6 people made an incredible impact and difference in Canadian organ donor registration. From this, the Logan Boulet Effect and Green Shirt Day were born, which have made the topic of organ donation easier to broach. Green Shirt Day is marked each April 7, which honours Logan’s day of passing.
Bernadine (Bernie) is from Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada and retired in June 2024 after teaching grade 1 and 2 for 36 years. In 2019 while preparing for the first Green Shirt Day, she scoured the internet for print and digital resources to share with her students and her school to explain and share about organ and tissue donation. She came upon the Orgamites, created by Roydon Turner. Bernadine found these cute, animated characters supported by personal stories, books, and videos, to be very successful in working with young students to build understanding, interest, and conversations about the body’s mighty organs and organ and tissue donation. A casual conversation with Jenny Ryan of Canadian Blood Services about these successes has led to the creation of Orgamites.ca.
An Alberta elementary school is not a place where the topics of organ donation and transplantation had been common or are part of the curriculum, but Bernadine has found ways to make these topics unworried conversations and discussions. Her personal experience and advocacy have led her elementary school and many others across Canada to share these topics in safe, open ways with these young students. Even in retirement, Bernadine continues to be a strong advocate of sharing about organ and tissue donation and transplantation with elementary aged students through the topics of the mighty organs, helping others, and sharing kindness, and to encourage families to have effortless, straightforward conversations together about these topics.