School pulls together for teacher with kidney disease

Greenwood Public School is coming together in order to help one of its most popular teachers.

The school is launching a clothing drive with Kidney Clothes for Teena Coventry, a grade six and seven teacher at the school who is currently awaiting dialysis.

Coventry, who has served as an educator locally for roughly two decades, has polycystic kidney disease.

“It’s like cysts, and they take over the functioning of your kidney,” said Coventry.

She inherited her love of teaching from her late father, who quit the steel plant in order to pursue a career in teaching.

“I knew I wanted to be a teacher from the time I was really little,” she said.

Coventry, affectionately known as ‘Mrs. C’ by her students at Greenwood, also inherited kidney disease from her father. It’s hereditary in her family, spanning generations.

Her grandfather and her father had it, and two of her sisters have it.

Coventry’s 17-year-old daughter also has kidney disease, as well as Coventry’s nephew.

Coventry says that she and her sisters were first diagnosed with the disease when Coventry was just 16-years-old.

Their father was in need of a kidney donor, so they wanted to see if they qualified.

“We went to get checked to see if we could give him a kidney, and that’s how we found out that we had it too,” said Coventry. “So we couldn’t give him a kidney.”

Coventry says it’s just a matter of time before she begins dialysis. Currently, her kidney functioning is at 11 per cent and she is now in renal failure.

“I don’t have a live donor, so I’ll go on a list for a donor to get a transplant,” Coventry said.

Bob Garson, who volunteers some of his time to help Coventry coach a variety of sports at Greenwood Public School, partnered with parents of children at the school in order to organize the clothing drive for Kidney Clothes.

“I found out she was going to need a kidney and she’s going to start dialysis and she’s going to be there (at the school) less, so I started looking into what we could do,” Garson said. “So I got a hold of the Kidney Foundation.”

Coventry, who refers to her grade six and seven students as her ‘peeps’, says there’s a sense of family at the school on Fourth Line. Her students, who are aware of her situation, are constantly asking her if she’s OK, and worry about her whenever she’s away from the school.

“They always worry about you, and it’s like one big family,” said Coventry. “That’s what it’s like. That’s how I feel being here, it’s like a family.”

“I tell them all the time, ‘you guys are like my kids.’ They’re like my family, that’s how I see them.”

Coventry - who dedicates a lot of her time to coach sports at Greenwood due to her competitive spirit - hopes that if anything, her students learn about her disease through the clothing drive.

“I think it’s the fear of the unknown sometimes with kids, they don’t really understand,” she said.

Coventry originally taught grades five and six, but she wasn’t ready to let them go, so she moved up a grade with them.

“These kids I’m telling you, I don’t know what I would do without them,” said Coventry. “They’re amazing. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know how I could make it through the day. I really don’t.”

The day before the clothing drive for Kidney Clothes is set to launch at Greenwood Public School, Garson and ‘Mrs. C’ were holding an indoor session of catch for Coventry’s grade six and seven boys in the gymnasium, well before the baseball season is set to begin.

“They put the sunshine in my day,” Coventry said. “I tell them that. ‘A day without you is like a day without sunshine.’ That’s how I feel, they’re great kids.”

The clothing drive officially gets underway Friday at noon with a presentation by Kidney Clothes.