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Snowflake Walk Sunday in PoCo Event is designed to raise awareness of bullying and to fund anti-bullying initiatives Jeremy Deutsch jdeutsch@thenownews.com
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hough the forecast is calling for rain on Sunday, it will be all about the snowflake. Residents from Port Coquitlam and throughout the Lower Mainland are being encouraged to show their support for a new anti-bullying campaign by taking part in the inaugural Snowflake Walk. The walk gets its name from the nickname Carol Todd had for her daughter Amanda, whose high-profile death after years of bullying impacted people around the world. Besides raising awareness of bullying, the walk aims to gather funds for an anti-bullying resource centre and education. Carol Todd will be among the walkers. Amanda’s mother said it’s great that Port Coquitlam has started the campaign and walk, which she suggested would help increase awareness of bullying and its causes. “It’s just a fun way to get people together to start thinking about it again,” Todd told The NOW. She also hopes other cities will start their own Snowflake Walks to bring attention to the issue. Though Amanda was the inspiration for the snowflake and pink colours used in the campaign, her mother said she doesn’t want the walk to become the Amanda Todd walk, noting the city already has the Terry Fox Run. “This is a symbol of what we can do as a community in order to begin to end bullying,” Todd said.
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Natasha Forsberg, left, Holly Pham and Marlo Bourgeois sell snowflake bracelets at Gleneagle Secondary. The walk is part of a major initiative launched in November called the Be Someone campaign. The campaign includes a number of measures to curb bullying, including a first-of-itskind anti-bullying bylaw in B.C. The program will be visible through window decals placed in businesses and public areas alerting young people
that those businesses and community facilities are safe places for anyone who is being bullied. Todd said she’s pleased to see the campaign catching on, noting other cities across the country have requested information packages from the City of PoCo. She added she also gets a warm feel-
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ing when she sees the Be Someone decals in local businesses. Registration for the walk begins at 11 a.m. Sunday (Dec. 9) at the Port Coquitlam Recreation Complex on Wilson Avenue, with the walk starting at 1 p.m. For more information go to www. snowflakewalk.com.
Mice, squirrel infestation at Village Hall Jeremy Deutsch jdeutsch@thenownews.com The business of running a small city or village usually includes a variety of tasks like handling business or building permits and the occasional requests from the public. But it’s doubtful the staff at Anmore Village Hall thought dealing with a rodent infestation would be on the to-do list. Last week, Anmore council decided to move the municipality’s operations out from the village hall to a temporary trailer because of an ongoing rodent infestation. Mayor Heather Anderson said the pest problems have
been around for years, but got worse this fall after the heat in the nearly 100-year-old building was turned on. At one point, staff caught a half dozen squirrels and mice in the ceiling. She said the village hired an extermination service, but that didn’t work. “The smell got to be so bad we felt it wasn’t appropriate for our staff to be working in that environment,” Anderson told The NOW. “It’s just a bigger problem than what we realized.” So for now, the village will operate out of a trailer right beside the building. The plan is to get a larger trailer in the new year that can house the operations for
up to two years. The cost of the trailer, including the move, will set the village back $117,000 over the two-year period. But that would be small change compared to building a new village hall. Anderson said the price tag on a new hall could be in the $1.5-million to $2-million range. She said the village had no short term plans to replace or renovate the aging hall until this incident. But it’s now a top priority for the municipality. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do and act on it fairly quickly,” she said. Council asked staff to look into the village’s options,
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