Kim Lee, with her two-year-old daughter Maggie, outside their home.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)

VERNON - Kimberley Lee has some deeply personal reasons for placing a "We heart nurses" sign outside of her home, which sits directly across the street from Vernon Jubilee Hospital.

The short but powerful message is woven into the chain link fence outside of Lee’s home with bright orange tape and is highly visible from busy Highway 97 and — as Lee soon found out — from the upper floors of the hospital.

“I’m not a nurse, but I used to be a social worker so I worked with nurses. And my sister was born with a birth defect so we spent lots and lots of my own childhood in hospitals with nurses, and then of course when my child was born. So, we just love nurses.”

When she and her family moved to Vernon a year ago, they had some reservations about living across from the hospital — such as sirens at all hours of the night.

“But the longer we lived here, the more comforting it was to know there was always, literally any time of day, someone there to help us out,” Lee says.

The exit from the hospital back onto Highway 97 is immediately across from Lee’s house, which is what gave her the idea to put a sign up.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)

“Everyone can see our house so I was like ‘let’s make the best of it,’” she says.

The sign has clearly touched those it was meant to. Not long after putting it up, Lee found a handwritten note left at her house.

“Thank you for your ‘We heart nurses’ sign on your fence. I’m a nurse on 2nd floor and every nurse on our floor (was) so overjoyed when we saw it,” the note says.

Lee will be leaving the sign up at least until the end of Nurses Week, which runs until May 13. After that, she may use her high profile location for a new message.

A handwritten note left for Lee shows how much her sign meant to those on the front lines of health care.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)

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