The theme of gratitude comes to mind as I look back on last week, a workweek broken in half by Remembrance Day.
On Nov. 9 I got an email reminder of the next morning’s Remembrance Day assembly at Adam Robertson Elementary School. For the past few years I have attended at the invitation of Grade 7 teacher Tanya Poznikoff. Each year she produces a short play that her class presents at the assembly. The productions are consistently outstanding — beautiful to look at, lovely to listen to and are an invitation for the audience to meditate on what it means to families and communities when their members go off to war.
Later, I was surprised to see a post on Facebook from former CBC Almanac host Mark Forsythe about attendance at the cenotaph in Fort Langley for the Remembrance Day service. Forsythe visited Creston Valley Public Library earlier this year to promote his latest book, From the West Coast to the Western Front: British Columbians and the Great War. He tends to notice such things and commented that in 1998 there were two people at the cenotaph ceremony. This year, 17 years and the 9-11 horror later, the crowd numbered in the thousands, he said.
I had another appointment scheduled on Wednesday so I did not attend the cenotaph ceremony in Creston. Instead, I was out at Shukin Orchards, witnessing the sixth annual effort to send apples and gift items to Shamattawa, an isolated northern Manitoba community. It has become a truly remarkable project, with organizers Muriel Buhr and Terrie Faulkner working year-round to collect clothing, notions and small gifts to send to the community before Christmas. Buhr’s interest was piqued years ago when she was invited to the home of friends whose RCMP officer son was visiting. In conversations over dinner he mentioned the challenges faced by the isolated and poverty-stricken community of Shamattawa, where he was posted. Items we take for granted, like fruit, he said, are luxuries in fly-in communities, where battered and bruised apples cost a small fortune at the town’s grocery store.
Buhr approached Ken Shukin, whose Shukin Orchard donates tons of fruit to food banks around the province, and the plan was hatched. She has woven together a remarkable team of volunteers, including trucking companies and airlines that transport the half-dozen or so tightly wrapped pallets to Shamattawa at no charge. I was genuinely moved to see the enthusiasm of the seven women, including three teenagers, as they sorted through items to create gift packs for each child in the 1,400-member reserve. Next week’s Advance will include a story and photos as we work with Buhr and Faulkner to acknowledge the many who help in this most worthy project.
The Shamattawa effort is all the more impressive knowing it comes at the same time when much of our attention turns to the local food bank and the hamper fund, both of which fill huge gaps in the lives of the less fortunate of our friends and neighbours. Add to that the recent fundraiser led by Brandy Dyer for the family of the man who lost his life in a sawmill accident, and the efforts by Canyon-Lister Fire Department to aid the family that lost its home to fire last month, and one starts to get a better appreciation of this community’s endless generosity.
Finally, if I needed another reminder to feel gratitude at this time of year, I needed only to stare at a picture from Global News in Calgary. In it, my son and another RCMP member, both dressed in the traditional red serge, were casting salutes in front of the Memorial Drive cenotaph after placing wreaths on behalf of their fellow officers. I sent him a message later to tell him how proud I was, the more so because he also took our grandchildren, ages three and six. His response was simple, that it is important to him and his wife that the kids gain an appreciation for the countless women and men who serve their community and country.
He grew up in Creston, so of course I wasn’t surprised.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.
