Quebec daycares put out white blankets to show support for bus crash victims

Daycares in Quebec are showing their solidarity with the Garderie Educative Sainte-Rose after two children were killed and six others injured when a bus crashed into it.

Centres de la petite enfance (CPE) started the movement by putting up white blankets or “doudous” as they are called in French, as a flag outside their door.

“It was horrible…it was terrible what we had to live yesterday, it was one of the worst days I have ever lived up to now,” said Samir Alahmad, president of the Private Daycare Association of Quebec, on the site of the daycare crash on Thursday morning.

“You see daycare is not like any other business. It’s families. I mean the kids in your daycare they stay three to four years, you know them, you know their families, they know you, we are part of their life. It’s like losing someone from your family.”

The community is still shaken by what happened to those children on Wednesday.

“They’ll never get to work, they’ll never get to go to school,” says Victoria Faraone. “It’s just so terrible.”

#WATCH: Quebec daycares put out white blankets to show support for Laval bus crash victims. @Pamela__Pagano has more.

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Alahmad says he knows the owner of the daycare where the tragedy occurred.

“I spoke with her yesterday, two hours roughly after the event, she was devastated,” he said.

“The entire team is in solidarity with the families and our colleagues in early childhood,” wrote CPE Les P’tits Soleils on its Facebook page. “All three of our facilities have put up white flags as a sign of support.”

At Laval’s Sainte-Rose-de-Lima church, flowers were laid down, alongside stuffed animals and lit candles. Many paying a visit were in tears.

One person there said: “I have six grandchildren and it makes me sad thinking, ‘What could have happened if it was one of my grandchildren?'”

The white blankets were present not only at daycares. Martin Dufresne says he and his coworkers attached some to their trucks.

“I am a father, a grandfather,” he said. “I have a lot of rage, incomprehension and pain too. It’s difficult.”