Nemo finds new home: Library to donate beloved goldfish to University Hospitals for kids' therapy role

SHEFFIELD LAKE — After hearing the Domonkas Branch Library was looking to relocate its resident goldfish Nemo, University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital stepped in to offer not only a new home for the fish, but also a new job. Soon, Nemo will be transported from his longtime dwelling in the library in Sheffield Lake to the children's hospital in Cleveland, where he will become part of UH's Mobile Aquarium Therapy program. He will even appear on a trading card as part of the program. The arrangement was made Wednesday morning after Diane Pekarek, Marion C. Risman & Family Endowed Pet Pals coordinator for UH, read that the goldfish needed a new home and contacted the library. "The (Mobile Aquarium Therapy) program has been such a success that I'd been thinking about getting additional carts so that we can have more coverage," Pekarek said. "When I read the article, it was perfect. Nemo was meant to be here to help the kids." She said UH started using fish for visits in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic for social distancing reasons. With therapy animals like dogs, cats and horses, a handler must remain close to the animal — consequently coming too close to the patient. With aquariums that can be transported into a patient's room on a cart, social distancing is less of an obstacle. The mobile aquarium therapy program turned out to be "a huge hit" with the patients, Pekarek said. "Mobile aquarium therapy is an arm of animal-assisted intervention, but it is different in that it has very much an escapist quality," she said. "So where a dog or cat, when you're hugging them, it brings you into the moment, looking at an aquarium and the bubbles and the plants and the fish takes you away, almost as if you're out in nature." There is written documentation that viewing aquariums can lower blood pressure, lower respiration and release endorphins, Pekarek added. The Lorain Public Library system decided to start looking for a new place for Nemo after some of his gravel was accidentally put down a sink at the Domonkas Branch, damaging new plumbing and causing officials to look at the costs of maintaining his tank. It was determined that the supplies and employee hours spent caring for the tank can add up to thousands of dollars in a year. That time and money could be better spent on activities for patrons, Lorain Public Library System Director Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz said Tuesday. Nemo was donated to the library by a staff member about seven years ago as part of a summer reading program, and he has been displayed prominently in his tank since. The library "couldn't be happier or more proud" of Nemo becoming a therapy fish, according to a statement provided by Jennifer Black, director of marketing and public relations for the Lorain Public Library System. "We just know that his sweet disposition and calming nature will be the perfect addition to their program and bring much joy to their young patients," the statement said. For now, Domonkas Branch patrons still have time to bid farewell to Nemo before he starts his new job. He is expected to be in the library until next weekend, when UH may make arrangements to pick him up. A group of patrons who had advocated for keeping Nemo at the library planned to have a discussion Wednesday evening that would likely include considering deleting an online petition asking library officials not to move him. Jake Marimberga, a Sheffield Lake resident who shared the petition online, said he was pleased with how the situation was resolved. "I think that's fantastic," Marimberga said. "I don't think he could have gone to a better place." Contact Dylan Reynolds at (440) 329-7123 or dreynolds@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @drey1357.