Charity

Need my Assistance with Your Charity?

If you need my assistance in some form for your charity, send a brief e-mail with a short description of what you would like to do and include your phone number and e-mail address to David at letsrock27@hotmail.com. Just know that I will mostly favor local charities since I prefer to be involved in person.

Shaken Baby Syndrome

If there's one thing that I have always made sure to do during my career it has been to get involved with charities.  As an athlete, I feel blessed by the chance God has given be to be in the NHL and the least I can do to show my appreciation is to give back.  We, well most athlete anyways, know how big of an impact we can have by getting involved in charities, especially the ones involving kids. Kids look up to us. Kids are our future.  At the end of the day, who cares how many Stanley Cups I have won or how many fights I’ve been in where I have won.  I think as a human being you are more respected for what you have done to try to make this world better!  That's my personal take on it.

So still talking about that subject, the picture on this page is a poster educating people about "Shaken Baby Syndrome."  Of all the charities I have been involved with this one has to be the one that's the most important and here's why... Many people with kids, especially younger couples, might not have the most patience in raising them and a lot of the time when a kid is crying, they get really irritated and some will shake their babies realizing soon after that this action makes the baby stop crying. So considering they're not actually hitting the baby, they think it's good, so every time the baby cries, they shake him or her and the baby stops crying. Well, bad idea, many babies have died from such actions and when before it might have been considered an accident and you were able to get away with it, not anymore, you can go to jail for this. Every time you shake a baby like this, you cause a trauma to their brain, which could cause bleeding, this syndrome is called "Shaken Baby Syndrome." So please spread the word, it's so surprising how even today, many people don't even know about this and the reason I got involved is because this problem usually involves younger couples with children, or people who are uneducated about the issue. A lot of the time, they won't listen to a message of awareness from a doctor, but they will listen when it comes from a public figure, especially one of your local athletes. I don't know how many people this campaign has helped, but I know this for sure, if this was able to save one baby, it was well worth it, because at the end of the day, there aren't any bad charities out there!

To Launch a PDF with an article about this cause written by the Edmonton Capital Health District Health click here.