Surrey-based sawmill Teal Jones performed a remarkable feat of altruism this week by donating to Lytton and the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council enough lumber to rebuild 50 homes and buildings.

That’s roughly a half-million board feet, to help the B.C. village rise again from the ashes after it was burned to the ground just weeks ago. And now, other companies are getting on board.

READ ALSO: Surrey sawmill donating enough lumber to build 50 houses in Lytton, B.C.

Critics will suggest there’s a self-serving element to that altruism and the undeniably favourable public relations Teal Jones is now basking in for this generous move, as it follows in the wake of protests that were staged roughly one month ago outside the company’s headquarters on Trigg Road, against logging old growth forests in B.C., particularly in Vancouver Island’s Fairy Creek watershed.

It brings to mind that old saying, “Never let a good deed go unpunished.” Teal Jones, B.C.’s largest privately owned timber company, has been investing $60 million in its Surrey headquarters since 2019. The company has more than 2,000 employees in North America and of those, 1,000 are in B.C., and half of those work in Surrey.

The company’s motivation for helping out the people of Lytton in their time of desperate need is ultimately between its owners and their God. But what is undeniable is the company’s profound act of generosity to people so desperately in need of help. Fifty homes and buildings is a lot of lumber.

Teal Jones did not have to do this, but it did. And the good in that is incontestable.

– Now-Leader

Surrey Now Leader