Kiwanis makes heartfelt donations

Martin Valk, a past president of the Merrick Kiwanis Club, noticed that the Merrick and North Merrick libraries did not have automated external defibrillators. Thanks to his and other Kiwanians’ actions, that soon will change.

The Kiwanis Club presented an AED — a portable device that can transmit an electric shock to someone in sudden cardiac arrest and reestablish a normal heartbeat — to the North Merrick Public Library at its Feb. 26 Board of Directors meeting. A second AED for the Merrick Library is forthcoming. The Jason F. Gruen Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports children’s heart health and which Susan Helsinger, another Merrick Kiwanis Club past president, founded and heads, also contributed funding for the AEDs.

Michael Reid, a fellow Merrick Kiwanian, paramedic and volunteer firefighter, provided AED and cardiopulmonary resuscitation training to library staff, and Kim Scharoff, the current Merrick Kiwanis Club president, handled the donations.