‘A little bit of comfort’: Manitoba grandmother knits dolls for child wildfire evacuees

Izzy Dolls made by Kim Michalski are shown in a June 2, 2025 photo. (Kim Michalski/CTV News Winnipeg)

Sixteen Manitoba children forced to flee their wildfire-threatened homes have been gifted some handmade treasures to make their time away a little bit more comforting.

Kim Michalski dropped off a batch of Izzy Dolls at the evacuation centre at the Soccer Federation North facility in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

“These kids came from up north, and all they could bring was one bag each, so they obviously didn’t bring a lot of toys or anything, and so I just dropped them off,” she told CTV News Winnipeg.

“It’s just a little bit of comfort in a bad situation.”

Izzy Dolls are a type of knitted or crocheted toy created by crafters around the world and donated to children facing times of uncertainty or crisis.

They’re part of a global initiative inspired by Master Cpl. Mark “Izzy” Isfeld. While on a UN peacekeeping mission to Croatia, he noticed a child’s doll lying on a pile of rubble.

He told his mother about the troubling sight, who in turn crocheted some small dolls Cpl. Isfeld could give out to children he encountered on his duties.

When Isfeld died in a landmine explosion in 1994, his unit asked Isfeld’s mother to make more of the dolls that they could distribute in his memory.

The unit named the toy Izzy.

Decades later, Izzy Dolls have become a global initiative, with volunteer knitters and crocheters making the dolls and delivering them to children around the world. To date, they’ve reached 130 crisis zones.

Michalski began making them last year after seeing folks share their homemade Izzy Dolls in a Facebook group for crafters. She had previously knitted countless hats to donate to homeless shelters and thought this seemed like another use of her skills, burgeoning as they may be.

“I’m not a proficient knitter at all, but these things are so simple to make and they’re so much fun.”

She brought her first batch with her when she went on vacation to Hawaii, hiding them for children to find enclosed with a note.

Ever since, Michalski has kept Izzy Dolls in her car to hand out on a whim to the kids she encounters, never taking any money for them.

Making them for Manitoba children forced from their homes under the threat of wildfires just made sense, Michalski said.

“It’s something that’ll be small enough that they can take home. That’s the whole thing, because when they go back, they don’t know what’s going to be left.”

- With files from CTV’s Annie Bergeron-Oliver