The Whitevalley Community Resource Centre welcomes spring with some new programs, staff members, volunteers and board members.
The Kick It To The Curb project gave people a chance to clean up their houses and yards and put furniture and other still-useful household items out to be taken free by people who could use them. Left-overs were picked up by the village.
“This was a great way to recycle and it fits in with our strategic goals for the year focusing on poverty,” said Gay Jewitt, executive director of the Whitevalley Community Resource Centre.
“The reasons that people find themselves in poverty are not always something they can control, for example, their health or disabilities. We are going to look at ways that we can help each other as a community.”
The centre has a resource bank which lists what people have to give away, places to rent, jobs, and other services and it is a place for people to post what they need, and organizations to look at for donations. One example of how the resource bank works is that it was able to help a child get the proper shoes to participate in a sports program.
There are also plant and produce exchanges and The Good Food Box, a way to get a box of reasonably priced produce to cook healthy meals. The centre works with the thrift store, the Lumby Foodbank and the newly established Cherryville Foodbank.
The centre will host a Cultural Poverty workshop in the spring.
“The concept is for us to look at poverty differently, to look at standards of what is acceptable and not be judgmental about what people find personally acceptable. It’s also to look at ways to connect with people and help them make the changes they want through sharing resources,” said Jewitt.
She urges people to think about what they can share but to call the office first and say what they have, not to drop it off, as there is no storage space at the centre.
The centre has a number of family, youth and seniors programs. Alisa Singh is the new youth program coordinator and Nadja Cuijpers is the new home and school support/family support worker. Sharon Harvey, a Cherryville native and nurse, is a new board of directors member. Judy Stewart retired to the Lumby area with her husband from Alberta two years ago and is looking forward to volunteering at the centre.
For more information about the Whitevalley Community Resource Centre and its programs, call 250-547-8866 or see www.whitevalley.ca.
