Gary Hee, seen here in Fort Langley during a 2019 campaign against hospital parking fees, hopes to raise funds to provide snacks for residential school survivors. (Langley Advance Times file)

An offer of planters for memorials to residential school victims from recycling advocate

Gary Hee used discarded Langley election signs

An activist who recycled discarded Langley election signs into planters has offered to donate them as memorials to residential school victims.

Gary Hee said he has offered the planters to local First Nations to be used for planting flowers in memory of the 215 children, students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, whose unmarked graves were found on the reserve using ground-penetrating radar.

“That would just make my day,” if they said yes, Hee told the Langley Advance Times on Wednesday, June 30.

“I can deliver them.”

READ ALSO: Langley election signs transformed into planters by recycling advocate

A former Langley council candidate, Hee recycled plastic campaign signs from the Oct. 24 provincial election sturdy planter boxes with one-inch thick walls.

Hee has also set up a GoFundMe page, “Lunch Treats for Residential School Survivors” to raise money to buy food gift cards for those who survived the school.

“As a small business owner in Surrey B.C. near the Fort Langley community and the Kwantlen First Nation Indian Reserve and having lived near the City of North Vancouver and near the St. Paul’s Residential school, home of Chief Dan George, I hope my humble participation will be multiplied by a thousand-fold,” Hee said in the GoFundMe page.

READ ALSO: Campaign against Langley hospital parking fees reaches goal of 2,500 signatures

A business owner who lives near the Surrey-Langley border on the Cloverdale side, Hee got involved in Langley politics when he began campaigning for improvements to the stretch of road that crosses the Langley-Surrey border following a number of serious accidents in the area of 72 Avenue and 198B Street.

He’s also campaigned for free parking at Langley Memorial Hospital.


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Langley Advance Times