July 30, 2014

MAPLE RIDGE & PITT MEADOWS

O CO P OUR COMMUNITY OUR PEOPLE. Introducing a few of your neighbours who, through their involvement, help to make our community what it is.

Welcome to the fourth annual edition of Our Community Our People.

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A BANDSTAND BEAUTIFICATION PROJECT

Celebrating 28 years!

Gale Yip has her mind single-mindedly focused on a larger goal, on something the larger family of 75,000 residents of Maple Ridge might all enjoy, for years.

By Phil Melnychuk She’s got a family to worry about, including a son who plays in the NHL, not to mention her own career as a consultant in the automotive industry. And when she has time, she enjoys playing the euphonium, a small tuba.

But Gale Yip has her mind single-mindedly focused on a larger goal, on something the larger family of 75,000 residents of Maple Ridge might all enjoy, for years.

Yip wants to ensure the bandstand that was started 20 years ago, and which has been the focal point of Memorial Peace Park ever since, is finally completed.

The solid structure has been a meeting place, a stage for hard rock and soft violins and Caribbean reggae, a hangout for street people, a skateboarding rink and a pedestal for politicians.

While the volunteers with the Maple Ridge Concert Band built the structure in 1994 for $192,000 – then gave it to the District of Maple Ridge – they ran out of money to give it the final touch. The copper roof never received the chemical treatment to turn the roof to a beautiful aqua blue, instead of an ugly brown.

Yip’s urgency is founded in the knowledge that this last remaining task must be done to complete the legacy when the concert band built the bandstand entirely of donated money, materials and labour. In the pamphlet handed out at the Birthday Bash in May, the concert band proudly notes, “not one taxpayer penny was used.” Instead, to encourage donations, brass plaques with names of donors adorn the circumference of the stand.

Yip hopes that work can start next spring, so that it’s ready for next summer.

“Look what they did,” she says referring to efforts made two decades ago. “The bandstand looks great.”

“There’s only a handful of us involved from 20 years ago. We’ve got the energy to do this now and set the path to our younger members.”

For the last year, Yip, president of the concert band, has been leading the drive to raise funds for the bandstand beautification project.

Costs could climb to $40,000 to scrub the roof with an environmentally safe acid wash, then treat the metal with chemicals that will turn the shiny copper to turquoise blue.

Included in the project is a minor improvement to the ceiling, recently done by the District of Maple Ridge parks and leisure ser-

vices department, and the recent addition of wrought iron brackets that make it easier to hang things on around the bandstand.

“This is the last kick at the cat. If it’s not going to be now, by us, it won’t be done.”

Once it is, she hopes to have more family time, for husband Wayne and sons Matthew and Brandon, who is 29 and played two games with the Phoenix Coyotes last season.

Part of what motivates her is to ensure the community realizes what an asset it has in the bandstand.

She also wants to ensure that through the process, people know about its history, who built it and why.

“There’s nowhere else out here in the Lower Mainland that has a bandstand. And that’s Tom’s doing.”

After seeing how bandstands succeed in towns in the U.S., trombone player and architect Tom Walker designed the bandstand with acoustics in mind.

The ceiling panels are designed to reflect the sound and eliminate the “slap back” effect.

Walker had toured Europe and the U.S. extensively when he was in a teen band and noticed how great bandstands served as community focal points and locations for dozens of events.

Past Royal Canadian Legion No. 88 president and Second World War veteran George Price led the fundraising efforts and used the opening in May 7, 1994 as a location for his fourth marriage.

“We’re pretty proud of what we’ve done for the community,” Yip says.

“Our community needs to know who was responsible for it. Everybody uses it.”

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GROUNDWATER EXPERT STUDIES FRACKING IN NORTHERN B.C. Simon Fraser University hydrogeologist Diana Allen is talking to residents who are concerned about the purity of their water supply.

By Neil Corbett Pitt Meadows resident and professor Diana Allen is one of a handful of groundwater experts in Canada, and her experience and expertise is being put to work in northeast B.C., looking at the controversial practice of fracking by gas companies.

Allen is traveling between places like Prince George, Dawson Creek and Chetwynd, appreciating the beauty of the north, with bright yellow fields of canola set against dark tree lines.

The Simon Fraser University hydrogeologist is talking to residents who are concerned about the purity of their water supply, and just starting a multi-year project that will investigate groundwater resources in northern B.C., the new hotbed of fracking in Canada.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of drilling and injecting water into the ground at a high pressure in order to break up shale rocks, to release the natural gas inside them.

Chemicals are used in the process, including known carcinogens and toxins, and the result is contaminated water.

“There’s a lot of concern, by a lot of people,” said Allen.

The process uses millions of cubic feet of water, which becomes contaminated. Some is re-used for future fracking, but it must eventually be disposed of, and not returned to nature.

Her study is multi faceted. Working with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, she will test and document the water chemistry of samples delivered by the ministry.

Her work will be a contributing case study to an overarching international study, initiated in Japan, which will look at the water-energy-food security nexus.

The fracking in the north is a good case, because the same resource that is needed for fracking is also necessary for drinking water, agriculture and fisheries.

The goal is to come up with a way to evaluate these systems in a manner that helps politicians make better decisions, she explained.

Based on her early research, Allen said residents are right to ask questions about their water supply.

“I share their concerns about the water resource,” she said.

However, she noted that much of the “negativism” surrounding fracking comes from Pennsylvania and New York,

where the work is being done closer to the surface, and closer to water wells, which have been contaminated. That has caused Quebec to place a moratorium on fracking.

In northern B.C., the fracking is more than twice as deep as in the eastern U.S. In B.C., it’s two kilometers underground, and is less of a contamination threat.

“How the industry will deal with waste water is the more pressing issue,” she said.

Allen did a lot of work on the Gulf Islands, where fresh water wells were drilled too close to the ocean, and eventually became contaminated with salt water. She studied the problem for about 20 years.

The underlying theme in her work is risk.

“We’re trying to understand risk – risk to groundwater in northern B.C.”

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The backdrop of climate change is there in all her work. Allen was one of the first people in the world to look at climate change and groundwater.

She has been involved in the production of three reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was established by the United Nations to pull together all the latest research on global warming. She has helped to assess the impact of climate change on the world’s groundwater supply.

The panel has three working groups: one looking at how the climate is changing, and how it could change; a second studying impacts, such as rising sea levels; and a third studying adaptation and mitigation.

“In an ideal world, governments would look at these reports and act on them,” said Allen.

She studied physics and geology at Carleton University in Ottawa. For her masters degree, she studied permafrost, “but that got too cold.” So, she completed her PhD in hydrology. She was one of the earliest members of the new Earth Sciences Department at SFU, and was a young department head. Groundwater is a relatively young field of study, just hitting stride in the 1960s.

Her knowledge is in demand. Each large university in Canada has just one or two members of faculty doing groundwater research, and the each individual has his or her own area of specialization.

Last year, she took a study leave, and spent 140 days traveling in Japan, Germany, Austria, and Italy. She taught an intensive five-day course – Water, the Environment and Climate Change – at Finland’s University of Helsinki, to graduate students from across Europe. And earlier she worked in Mali, Africa, where the water problem is simply “they don’t have any.”

Allen also trained Mali technicians in how to put loggers in their wells, to track usage – a basic technical skill, but very important to managing their limited resource.

When her globetrotting is done, she returns to her Fraser Valley home. Allen has lived locally since 1997, with her husband and two children.

“Pitt Meadows is my little sanctuary.”

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A LIFETIME OF MINOR HOCKEY Gladys Hewson is steadfast in her beliefs: kids first, equal opportunity for all. She doesn’t want minor hockey to become a breeding ground for elite leagues.

By Michael Hall Gladys Hewson likes to get involved and gets things done.

She’s also known for having her voice heard. But it’s not always so loud.

Hewson, 60, was a volunteer board member with the Ridge Meadows Minor Hockey Association for 30 years. She’s worked as a school secretary in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows almost as long, and for the past two decades has held various posts with her local union, CUPE 703, the past six as secretary.

She has served numerous roles for RMMHA, as well, including vice-president, but spent most of her time as registrar. She enjoyed the latter most, because she got to interact with families, just like at the schools she’s worked in.

For her efforts, Hewson was recently honored by B.C. Hockey with a Life Members Award.

She was surprised at first, but honored by the acknowledgement.

“You don’t do it for a six-inch trophy,” said the life-long Maple Ridge resident.

But it did make her feel that all her dedication was appreciated.

The players, and their parents, were always at the front of her mind – to keep the game fun and affordable, so no one wouldn’t be able to not play – as well, to give a voice to those not as willing as her to speak up for what they think is right.

“I have been accused of being loud.”

But people need to stand up for each other, she said.

“You can’t be pushed around.”

Hewson first got involved in minor hockey when her two sons joined. They were seven and five years old.

Hewson could often be found in the scorekeepers box, with candy, which she would give to players, on either team, when they got a penalty, to make them feel better.

Because she likes to be involved, and help improve things, Hewson joined the executive board of the minor hockey association, and enjoyed it so much that she stayed on for three decades.

Besides being registrar, she also served on discipline and finance committees.

When her sons starting playing, the association had 350 players. Registration for first year players was $67.50 – for the season.

Ridge Meadows Minor Hockey now has close to 1,000 players. Registration for first-year players is $250.

But the sign-up cost for rep teams in the peewee and older divisions is more than $800. Team fees can add $1,200 to $2,000 more to that total, per player. The latter does not include travel costs, and each team generally takes one to two trips a year, and not all fundraise.

A season of rep hockey can cost a family more than $4,000.

That’s not affordable for all, Hewson said.

When the association hit 700 players, she added, costs doubled.

There wasn’t enough ice for all the teams. Before the rink in Pitt Meadows was built, teams that wanted extra ice would rent at Queen’s Park Arena in New Westminster for morning practices.

Brendan Morrison was on one of those teams.

6

OUR COMMUNITY OUR PEOPLE. July 2014

“He’d go anywhere,” said Hewson, whose eldest son also played on that team.

Morrison’s father, she recalls, used to tell the kids to go outside and look up at the stars and find the smallest one in the universe.

“That’s what hockey should be in your life.”

She agrees with him.

She doesn’t agree with paying rep coaches or paying executive board members to perform tasks such as accounting or scheduling ice times, or overseeing skill development.

She thinks it can all be done by volunteers, like it used to.

She also thinks ice costs are too high.

And she doesn’t think the association should have three or four rep teams at every age level, because it waters down the recreational divisions, rendering them less competitive.

Not everyone agrees with her.

A new regime, with different ideas, has taken over the minor hockey board, and Hewson was not re-elected last spring. But she might run again next year, if she doesn’t run for a position on the local school board, which she is also contemplating.

Gladys, who attends some school board meetings, is not pleased that CUPE jobs have been cut to help balance the school district budget the past few years. Her hours were cut, from 35 to 30, this past spring.

She says schools lack funding.

“Pay me now or pay me later.”

It’s the students, she says, who are affected most by the dispute between teachers and the provincial government – those who need just a little bit more attention than others.

“Kids should all get the same opportunity,” Hewson said.

If she does run for school board, she’ll have to leave her position at Blue Mountain elementary, and the union, to avoid conflict.

It is a difficult decision. She loves her job. She loves being so close to families. She would miss the students and her interactions with them.

She recalls one, a special needs student at one school. At the start, he was scared to walk by the office. She started smiling at him when he neared. Then she would wave and say ‘hi,’ or ask him how his day was. Then he wasn’t scared to walk past the office any more. Soon he loved coming to school.

“It doesn’t take much,” Hewson said.

She used to drive one boy to morning hockey practices, knocking on his front door, sometimes his bedroom door, to wake him up. She used to bring him home, too, cook him breakfast, then take him to school.

He wasn’t on either of her sons’ teams.

She sometimes wonders whatever happened to that boy.

“You hope you made a difference.”

Hewson is steadfast in her beliefs: kids first, equal opportunity for all.

She doesn’t want minor hockey to become a breeding ground for elite leagues.

The goal should be to keep minor hockey affordable, to keep kids playing.

“It’s not making good hockey players, but good citizens,” she said.

“It’s a great game.”

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Communities in Bloom program, which she co-chairs with Charlotte Mitchell.

For the first time since 2007, the District of Maple Ridge is part of the Communities in Bloom Program, a national initiative recognizing community beautification efforts through green space and urban enhancement. A total of 19 communities are entered in this year’s provincial competition.

Because Johnson-McCormick looks after a disabled adult during the day and has volunteer meetings on any given evening, little time is leftover for leisure activities.

Despite that, Johnson-McCormick claims she finds time to enjoy her own activities, which revolve around heritage preservation and gardening passions.

The home she lives in is a 100-year-old farm house that needed a great deal of restorative tender-loving care.

“We had to gut each and every room,” she explains. “It’s been a labour of love.”

When asked why she keeps volunteering for so many different groups, Johnson-McCormick replied emphatically, “you meet the most wonderful people.”

“When you’re doing volunteer work, nobody’s doing it for the recognition.”

As a parting thought, Johnson-McCormick adds, “I always have aspirations to do more.”

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The Port Hammond story – one filled with opium dens, a birthing house, brothels, bars, steamships and railroads – has ignited fascination in long-time resident and volunteer Cyndy Johnson-McCormick.

Before moving to Maple Ridge from Burnaby 23 years ago, she did not have experience volunteering with historical buffs. But when she heard about the chronicles of Port Hammond, she was interested.

“It has just a wild history that you can’t help but notice,” says Johnson-McCormick.

The avid gardener turned her intrigue into community support and became a committee member of Hammond Neighbours, whose mandate is to pursue neighborhood projects that promote local history and foster friendships.

One of the group’s many projects JohnsonMcCormick was a part of and proud of was the restoration of the Hammond outdoor pool.

Describing its previous state as a “concrete prison,” Johnson-McCormick says the finished project, complete with rainbow mural, was a beautiful artistic legacy that could not have been possible without the assistance of a local business that donated paint and labour.

“It was a job worth between $8,000 to $10,000,” she says.

Johnson-McCormick can now be found dividing her time between Maple Ridge’s Community Heritage Commission and the

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TREASURE AT THECom e to our Seniors Resource Fair PITT MEADOWS MUSEUM

ed., March 28th1995.

Leslie Norman has been the Curator of the Pitt MeadowsWMuseum since • 1-3 pm Pitt Meadows Rec Centre 12027 Harris Road

By Colleen Flanagan

Leslie Norman was in her office on the top floor of the Pitt Meadows Museum earlier this year when a woman walked in with a treasure.

The woman had been working at a garage sale when two rings and a pin were dropped off to be sold. Realizing the possible importance of the three pieces of jewelry, she bought them for the asking price and brought them to the museum, the 128-year-old building that originally house a general store.

The museum curator went online to find the origins of the brass pin and the two sterling silver rings and discovered they dated back to the First World War. The two rings were from the medical core, one with the insignia of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps on the front and the other with a worn down Latin motto “Ubique Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt,” or “Everywhere Whither Right and Glory Lead”.

The pin, in the shape of a munitions shell, would have been worn by a woman who worked at making them in a factory somewhere in Canada.

“Unfortunately, because it was just a garage sale that the stuff was dropped off at, we know nothing other than what they are and the type of person who would have had them, but not who actually had them, the original owner,” Norman said.

But such moments are what Norman lives for – the events that break the monotony of paperwork and data entry.

“It’s like the person who goes into their grandparents attic and there is something that is really cool that relates to your family there. For us, usually every couple of years something cool like that will come in or you find it in the collection.” continued on page 9

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continued from page 8 - Leslie Norman

Norman, raised in West Vancouver, travelled through Engdecades ago to count.” After being passed down through land and Scotland after high school and fell in love with the generations as a children’s trunk for dress up, it was donated British museums. Her travels firmed up her decision to mato the museum in 2013. jor in classical studies at the University of British Columbia.

Then there is the silver butter dish that belonged to Mary When she finished her degree in 1987, Norman moved to Jane Harris, the wife of the first Reeve of Maple Ridge, a Prince George and worked at the Fraser Fort George Regift from her Sunday school students at the Maple Ridge gional Museum, her first full-time position as an assistant Sabbath School dating back to 1890. The item came into curator. the Museum in 1983 and was donated by Hazel Anderson, “That was a really small museum, so it was the same as the daughter of pioneering residents William Park and Mary here. It was basically everything, programming, curatorial Agnes McMyn. work, registration work, everything that the curator wasn’t Then, 28 years later, Donna Barnes, the daughter of Hazel doing. There were just two of us at the time.”

Anderson, brought in a large collection of items she found In 1994, Norman and her husband Björn moved back to the when clearing out her mother’s home just after its sale.

Lower Mainland. She wanted to be a stay-at-home mom to Among the items were the accompanying cream and sugar her two daughters, Emma, now 23, and Hannah, 20. bowls with a note saying that they belonged to Harris.

One day, while looking at a local paper in Port Coquitlam, The one thing that Norman loves most about being the mushe came upon a small advertisement for a curator wanted seum curator are the people she meets in the community. by the Pitt Meadows Museum Society. It was the first time Citing the recent Centennial celebrations as an example, the society had money to hire somebody and Norman got the Norman got to meet many of the descendants of the pioneerjob, starting in November 1995. ing families.

The museum was first located in a little house along David“The sheer amount of volume of information that descenson Road that used to belong to John Austring, a pioneer of dants of some of the pioneering families have brought to us blueberry farming in Pitt Meadows. It was a dream job for because they realize now we’re here. Just the way they want Norman. Her role was be to digitize and properly catalogue us to be involved by letting us copy this information.” the collection that had been growing since 1978.

In future, Norman would like some help with the collec“It was fabulous. The woman who interviewed me said, ‘We tions and programming work. But mostly she just wants the don’t have a lot of money, so you can work mama’s hours.’” public to be aware of the museum’s existence, like during On Pitt Meadows Day in 1998, the museum moved to its the Centennial celebrations.

Pitt Meadows by paddle wheeler in 1882. current location along Harris Road.

The First World War jewelry will be ready for display for When she arrived, the mosquitoes were so thick “that the Norman is astounded by the collection at the Pitt Meadows Remembrance Day this year. sun was blacked out.”

Museum and how incredible it is for such a small facility.

• For more information about the Pitt Meadows Museum and Norman also loves the large Sungold Cheese box that was She is fond of artifacts such as the wedding dress worn by programs go to www.pittmeadowsmuseum.com. purchased from the Pitt Meadows General Store “too many Annie Louise Cooke – Run the firstDate: bride to July, be brought homeMaple to 2014 Ridge News (9.25" x 5.33") B&W EOR#6606

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CONQUERING CANCER ONE STEP AT A TIME

By Neil Corbett

It was getting so tough, Ali Wakeling was wondering whether she would be able to finish the bike marathon.

She had done the Ride to Conquer Cancer five years prior – when her late husband Sandy was first diagnosed with cancer.

She had memories of that first ride. It was a grueling physical ordeal, at a time when life was cruel.

“I felt so helpless. There was nothing we could do. You just put your life in the hands of the doctors.”

Her training to prepare for the second 250-kilometre ride to Seattle this spring was not going well. It was harder physically than she remembered, and virtually every training session seemed to get interrupted by a flat tire. Tears came easily. Still, she persevered.

“I wanted to do it again. We lost Sandy last July. I wanted to honour him that way, on Father’s Day weekend.”

And honour him she did.

While most riders were part of teams, Ali did the entire stretch on her own – two days of biking.

She cycles at a pace of about 25 km/h, and with the course offering pit stops every 20 to 30 km, she got hourly rests. She found it almost easy.

For a long time, Ali was riding behind a woman who was going about the same pace, if slightly faster.

“She was just the right pace setter for me.”

Ali was just starting to feel a little socially awkward about cycling in the other woman’s shadow when good fortune

popped the pace setter’s tire.

“I found a friend,” she said.

Ali introduced herself, then put her honed tire repair skills to use. They rode together the rest of that day and all the next, and are planning some summer rides together.

“I did great. It poured with rain, and I’m a fair weather cyclist, but I completely surprised myself.”

She earned $8,000 for the cause, as Team GIST (Gastro Intestinal Stromal Tumor). It is a rare sarcoma that affects about 15 people in a million, and it took Sandy.

Ali was supported by the students and staff at Pitt Meadows elementary, where she teaches. They had a fundraiser, for which students paid to pie their teachers.

“The teachers took a pie in the face for me,” she said.

“That community has been behind me. I love Pitt Meadows. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”

She enjoyed the whole Ride to Conquer Cancer experience so much that she followed it up with two other rides, including the overnight Relay for Life in Langley. That ride raises close to $50 million across Canada.

“That’s like a 12-hour party,” she said, with bands playing in a family atmosphere as people cycle their laps. “It was a fantastic event – we should do one in Maple Ridge.”

Ali plans to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer again next year.

She wants to support the B.C Cancer agency, as an organization that has earned her admiration.

“The people you encounter there are outstanding.”

She said the doctors there gave Sandy five good years with his young family. He was able to see their two sons through their early childhood years.

She and Sandy have been well known in the community for their work on the annual Terry Fox Run. She grew up in Port Coquitlam, where Fox came from. She remembers his Marathon of Hope as a significant event from her childhood. His run across Canada inspired the country, but she noted, “it’s even more profound when it’s someone from the neighbourhood.”

Her graduating classes was one of the first from Terry Fox secondary.

“Terry Fox has been with me my whole life.”

Ali will be helping to organize the Terry Fox Run again this year.

“That was our thing.”

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Olivia Liu, a Maple Ridge resident explains what the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation of Canada is all about.

By Neil Corbett

Marcela Shockey Ryan Dueckman

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VOLUNTEER EXPLAINS TZU CHI

OUR COMMUNITY OUR PEOPLE. July 2014

Some local people will have heard of Tzu Chi – perhaps after the group donated $17,000 to the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District this year. But it has been a comparatively low-profile organization in relation to the amount of good works it does.

Olivia Liu, a Maple Ridge resident who is a vice-director of the Coquitlam district, explains what the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation of Canada is all about.

She immigrated from Taiwan to Canada with a young family, and sent her daughter to Tzu Chi school in Coquitlam, after public school classes, so the girl could learn about her parents’ language and culture. Soon, Liu was volunteering at the school, and her involvement with Tzu Chi has steadily grown since then.

“We want to encourage people’s great love and sharing,” is how she describes the organization’s goals, with its ethos that good deeds help a person to grow and learn.

“It’s about serving people – not serving yourself, for your own profit.”

The organization’s reach is global, with hundreds of offices in 51 countries, including offices in Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey and Coquitlam.

Volunteers in South Africa helps AIDS patients and orphans. Tzu Chi works with the United Nations, and has a voice at its council meetings.

They rebuilt 13 schools after an earthquake in China.

The foundation encourages its members to be active locally. While their work includes international disaster relief, members also operate local food banks, plant trees, do the dirty work of clean up after Vancouver public events, pick up litter in local parks in the Fraser Valley, or go to a Maple Ridge

seniors home to visit with seniors and entertain them.

“We care. We give them our energy,” said Liu. The $17,000 that was donated in Maple Ridge is dispersed by a committee of local people. Students can apply, with the recommendation of their teacher or guardian, and receive up to $100 each year to help them with an after school activity. It could be sports, music, dancing or another activity.

“The last disbursement was in May, and there were a lot of requests for summer camps,” explained Dave Rempel, who heads the committee.

He said the money goes to kids in need, and is appreciated.

“For a lot of kids, it’s very critical funding for them, and they need it to explore their potential, and get started in things.”

Lui knows of a local boy who loves music, who is blind, and Tzu Chi assisted him in getting a donated piano and computer software. He is now studying music at UBC. Tzu Chi is also helping with a breakfast program at Glenwood elementary, and in December 2013, when there was an apartment fire on McIntosh Avenue, Tzu Chi gave burnedout residents emergency financial aid and bags with toiletries and other necessities.

Tzu Chi encourages bamboo banks. The ones distributed in Canada are cardboard tubes, but in Asia they are “piggy banks” cut from lengths of bamboo.

“You don’t have to give it to Tzu Chi. You can give it to anything or anyone. Or a student would pay their tuition – just save it,” she explained.

“When you save, and give to people, it’s a good cycle.”

Tzu Chi is a Buddhist organization, but Liu said it is not trying to convert people to the religion.

“We’re not pushing, we have to respect people,” she said. “We just give our experience.”

She finds most faiths have the same ethics.

“It’s the great love – our goals are the same,” she said. “Religion is like a school, you never graduate.”

She said the group is always looking for volunteers, and its activities in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows would expand as more people get involved.

“You have the potential to love others, and to serve people. You give more, and you learn more.”

CHRIS GILL TURNS BURRARDS INTO CONTENDERS

By Neil Corbett

One of the best players in Maple Ridge Burrards history is now the coach who is helping turn the team into a contender in the Western Lacrosse Association.

Chris Gill grew up Coquitlam, in the presence of lacrosse royalty. His father Sohen Gill was part of the B.C. lacrosse scene for 60 years as a player, coach, manager, administrator, official, volunteer and fan. He also coached the Burrards, served as WLA commissioner, and has been BCLA president.

He was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2005, and is in the B.C. sports hall of fame.

It’s no surprise that Sohen’s son turned out to be one of the best players of his generation.

He was drafted into the WLA by the Burrards first overall. As a player in the WLA, he racked up 482 goals and 351 assists in 282 games. Over his 13 seasons, his teams made the playoffs nine times, and played for the prestigious Mann Cup twice.

“It was awesome. We packed the place every night. We played rough and tough – a similar style to how we play now.”

He was also a standout in the National Lacrosse League, with stops with the Baltimore Thunder, Toronto Rock, Vancouver Ravens, Colorado Mammoth, Edmonton Rush and Calgary Roughnecks.

Along the way, he raised the Champion’s Cup three times – in 1999 and 2000 with Toronto, and 2006 with Colorado. He recorded 557 points in 173 career NLL games, retiring from the league in 2010.

“Chris is the consummate professional,” Mammoth president and general manager Steve Govett said at the time. “He played his role over the course of his entire career as well as any of the best to ever play the game.”

Gill moved to Pitt Meadows 13 years ago, and has been involved in coaching at every level of lacrosse. He was happy to be given the opportunity to turn his hometown team into a WLA contender.

When Gill was hired at the beginning of the season, Burrards GM Daren Fridge noted: “We were looking for a dynamic leader with valuable experience at the highest level of lacrosse and Chris is exactly what we are seeking.”

He coaches lacrosse at the highest level, with the NLL’s Mammoth, and with the peewee and bantam girls’ teams in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows. The peewees won provincial silver this year, and the bantams gold.

He loves coaching, but admits it isn’t easy to juggle so many squads.

“It’s tiring when you have so many teams going at once.

These guys [WLA] are easy – it’s the kids who are tough.”

The Burrards were sitting near to top of the standings as the season wound down, and had gone from a team that missed the playoffs the previous season to one that could be a tough playoff opponent.

“I was lucky to come into a team with a lot of talent,” Gill

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“People wrote us off, before the season started, like they always do. We just want to prove that we’re contenders in this league.”

And they are doing that.

“Everybody’s goal in every sport is to win a cup or win a championship, but you don’t get there by just saying you’re going to win it,” he said. “So, just make the team better in some way. Have an influence on something that can make the team better. You have to put in the effort.”

“Hopefully everybody buys in, and at the end of the day, maybe a good thing happens and you raise a cup.”

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DEALERSHIP OWNER GIVES BACK Ian Speckman, a father of three, aims to show that the community consists of more good citizens than bad by donating to worthy causes.

By Steph Troughton Almost 50 years in the same community can bring about dramatic change.

Just ask Maple Ridge Chrysler dealer principle Ian Speckman, who can recall when the district had one traffic light and his car dealership was a peat bog.

“This whole area has totally changed,” he says when motioning to the businesses nearby on Maple Meadows Way. Emphatic that Maple Ridge is home and a place he “never saw the need to leave,” Speckman is equally charged about why he continues to support the community financially and receive awards as a result.

“It’s just the right thing to do,” he maintains.

In 2011, Speckman, along with another community philanthropist, Maple Ridge fire chief Dane Spence, was awarded the Paul Harris Fellow Award for exemplary service and commitment to a community. The Paul Harris Fellow Award is given in recognition for long and meritorious community service.

The following two years, Speckman received the Rotary International Outstanding Contribution Award, in recognition for support of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows youth organizations.

He cannot recall all of the organizations or even individuals he has supported throughout the years.

When asked to recite a list, he mentions a few – the Children’s Wish Foundation of B.C., RPM Hockey School, fireworks celebrations and Rotary.

But he fails to mention donations such as the minivan given to the Pitt Meadows secondary track and field team, or the 2004 PT Cruiser given to a teen victim of kidnapping and assault in 2013.

Speckman, a father of three, said the latter was simply to show that the community consists of more good citizens than bad and hoped to help the young girl move forward in her life.

When asked why he continues and will continue to donate to worthy causes, he answers “I should do it simply because I can.”

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MOVEMENTS OF A BREAKTHROUGH DANCER

What makes Greystone Manor Different?

By Monisha Martins

Aimée Payne has an unflinching focus, like a hawk tracking prey. That’s what you need when you set out on a long journey to make your dreams come true.

Payne was 12 when she announced, emphatically, that one day she would dance in a big city.

“I thought it was way easier than it was. I just thought I was going to pick up and leave after high school, go to New York or L.A. and dance for artists.”

With fluid movements and long, strong limbs, Payne uses the dance floor like a canvas. To her, dancing is breathing.

She may have set her sights on the ambitious goal of being a big city dancer before she was a teenager, but getting there hasn’t been as straightforward as she thought.

“Somedays you have moments where you think, ‘I’m shooting too high,’” says Payne, now 20. “But I can’t settle. It’s not fulfilling enough for me.”

Making dreams come true means being strategic. Payne has read every book on how to succeed in the dance world, scours blogs, corresponds with dancers who’ve made it and is slowly climbing up the dance ladder.

It’s a journey that began with her mustering enough courage to break out. To shed the confines and routines of the dance studio and “carpe diem.”

“It was years of holding back, but knowing I had so much to give,” she says.

“After I graduated, I started creating opportunities for myself. Getting into the studio alone and figuring out my body as a creator.”

Payne began doing choreography showcases at 18. It allowed her to find herself as an artist.

When she signed up a year and a half ago for an American dance convention, Pulse on Tour, she never expected to get noticed.

“I went to the Pulse expecting just to train,” says Payne, who currently travels with Pulse as a protégé.

She calls it Los Angeles on the move, for dancers who can’t get to L.A. It’s like a scholarship. As a protégé, dancers get to take classes for free and assist the faculty, comprised of people Payne has idolized since she was little - Brian Friedman, Tyce Diorio, Chris Judd, Dave Scott, Gil Duldulao, Brooke Lipton, Desmond Richardson, Laurieann Gibson, Tessandra Chavez, and Ian Eastwood.

“This experience has been the biggest leap and is unlike anything I have ever done. I have really found myself as a dancer and a person through working with such incredible artists,” Payne says.

With mentors who’ve already made it in the industry, Payne has the perfect role models to guide her. As a dancer, she was on stage at the Winter Olympic opening ceremonies and competed for Canada at the dance world championships. This year, she’s featured in a movie titled Strings, choreographed

by Friedman and Tucker Barkley, who’ve worked with Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Prince, and Usher.

“Making connections in the industry is huge,” says Payne, who lived in L.A. for three months last year. Payne exudes a passion for dance, you can see it in her movement and hear it in her voice, so it’s no wonder she got noticed by L.A. casting agents in that short span.

While there, the choreographer of Glee asked her to dance in an upcoming episode – a gig Payne was forced to turn down because she didn’t have a work visa.

Payne turned the experience into a positive one.

“It became a major motivator to work even harder for what I want,” she says.

Her vision board is a daily reminder of where she sees herself in the future.

“This is a process, but has been my dream since I was 12 years old and I will not give up.”

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OUR COMMUNITY OUR PEOPLE. July 2014

17

FASD DOCTOR BEGINS RETIREMENT

C

Dr. Kwadwo Asante, founder of a Maple Ridge centre for children with fetal alcohol syndrome, retired this year after a long and distinguished career.

By Neil Corbett More than just the founder of the Asante Centre, Dr. Kwadwo Asante was one of the pioneers in FAS in Canada.

While the relationships between alcohol and health problems in children is now well established, that wasn’t the case when Asante began his medical career. There was a report in France in 1968 that made observations about the children of alcoholic mothers. But the term FAS was first coined by Seattle researchers, who in reports in 1972 and 1973 described the physical appearance and growth deficiency of children who “failed to thrive.”

“They recognized that some of these kids looked similar,” said Asante.

They had small eye openings, flatter cheekbones and a thin upper lip. They were also physically small, and showed delays in development.

Asante recognized the descriptions from children he had seen in Northern B.C. He was working in Northern B.C. and the Yukon, where he was virtually alone as a pediatrician. There was another in Prince George, and the next closest was Kamloops. Children with health problems eventually wound up in his clinic.

Asante lived in Terrace, would spent two days per week at a clinic in Kitimat, and was in Hazelton for one day each month. He also visited Whitehorse for one week out of every three months and was the only pediatrician for the Yukon.

Fortunately, the population was sparse at just 23,000, and 18,000 of those were in the capital city.

An avid outdoorsman, the native of Ghana had wanted to explore Canada’s north for a couple of years, starting in 1970. What should have been a chapter of his life became a Farley Mowat novel.

“You find you can’t leave. They need you. And you get to enjoy the north,” he said. “I just felt it wasn’t right to leave after two years.”

The report from Seattle struck a chord with him.

“I recognized that I had been seeing a lot of children in the north with those problems. I said, ‘this is a preventable problem’.”

He spoke with the native council for Yukon Indians, to raise awareness about drinking during pregnancy. He also began taking the social issue to the Whitehorse newspaper, again to create public awareness.

Not everyone received the report as valid.

“People have drank for a long time, so there was some

skepticism.”

A psychologist in Saskatoon added his voice to the conversation, as did others.

“I don’t take any credit for the discovery of FAS, but having learned about it, I got funding for a study in the north.”

His research team travelled to northern B.C. and the Yukon, visiting children with developmental delays and growth problems. They saw about 500 children, and roughly onethird had signs of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The majority of them were First Nations children.

Asante was invited to give talks and seminars about his findings in Northern B.C. His message was simple: avoid alcohol at all stages of pregnancy.

“Alcohol causes problems in all kinds of systems.”

He left the north, continuing his work in the field of FASD, and came to Maple Ridge in 1990. Two years after his arrival here, he met the mother of an adopted child with numerous health issues. She had been told the child had allergies and other wrong diagnosis. From the child’s appearance, and health history, Asante determined the child had FASD. The woman was persistent in her desire to do more to help such children. She and Asante started a local FAS action

group. They held a conference in 1995, with an international audience. It attracted the attention of the provincial government, which was willing to establish the first freestanding FASD centre in Canada. It was modeled after a centre at the University of Washington. It offers diagnosis, assessment and family support.

The board asked Dr. Asante if the centre could use his name, and after some hesitation, he agreed. It has only done him proud.

“It has been a very special project,” he said.

He has travelled to South Africa, New Zealand and Australia helping to set up similar facilities.

“Teaching has been an important part of my work.”

That work has been recognized in many ways. The Canadian Medical Association honoured Asante with a senior membership, he has received the governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal, UNBC gave him an Honourary Doctor of Laws, he has a Queen’s Jubilee medal and the Harry Jerome Award for “excellence in African Canadian achievement.”

Now he plans to relax, and spend more time with his two children and eight grandchildren.

“The time comes when I want to sit and tell my grandchildren what the old man is doing.”

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CHANGING OPINION WITH CULTURAL EDUCATION Ahmed Yousef shares his liberated and educated views with Maple Ridge as a volunteer board member of the Ridge Meadows Islamic Society.

Helping out in the community and helping you at

HOME

By Steph Troughton

PROUDLY SERVING

Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows Before coming to Maple Ridge with his daughters and wife in 2010, Ahmed Yousef lived all over the world.

From the time he was born in Cairo, Egypt to present day in this community, Yousef and his Canadian wife Shelley visited 80 countries.

After meeting in the city of Abu-Dhabi, the couple lived in Kuwait for 10 years and where their twin daughters, Saifya and Layla – now four years old – were born.

About that time, the parents decided to live in Canada.

They now have a two-year-old son, Adam.

Ahmed and Shelley wanted her parents to know their grandchildren. They also wanted to leave behind Kuwait, what Ahmed describes as the proverbial “concrete jungle” – and a place where citizens are subjected to a classification system recognized by the government.

“Within that society, it’s not healthy for a child to grow up in that environment,” he says.

Ahmed has been sharing his liberated and educated views with Maple Ridge since he became a volunteer board member of the Ridge Meadows Islamic Society. His main focus, he explains, is public outreach, which he hopes will help change societal opinions of Muslim people.

From his lifetime of traveling, Ahmed says he has seen with his own eyes the stigma attached to declaring oneself as Muslim.

He sees the stereotype as unfortunate and something that could be eradicated if everyone understood how similar Muslims and the prac-

tice of Islam is to other cultural beliefs, such as Christianity or Judaism.

In fact, those who are Muslim must be educated in Christianity and Judaism because their faith is based on the writings and all three religions.

“We’re all on the same page,” Ahmed says.

Organizing events such as the Eid al-Fitr celebration (Aug. 9, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Maple Ridge library) is part of that public education effort.

For 29 to 30 days during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, usually happening in late summer or early fall, Muslims take part in Ramadan – a fasting ritual that means no food or drink or any pleasures from sun rise to sun set.

Fasting is done to remind Muslims of people less fortunate than themselves and ends with the feast of Eid al-Fitr, the eve after Ramadan.

Ahmed says this year’s Eid al-Fitr will include Islamic speakers and a free lunch provided by society members. Diners will have the opportunity to taste food from many countries, including Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt.

As a devout Muslim, Ahmed believes in supporting his community any way he can. When he is not working for the society, he volunteers for other organizations, such as Scouts Canada, Operation Red Nose and Canadian Blood Services.

He describes his participation as a privilege and hopes his involvement is “strengthening the fabric of Maple Ridge,” a community he calls “exquisite.”

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19

NO LONGER RIDING ALONE

By Michael Hall

Darren Durupt, in a way, has ridden full circle.

The Maple Ridge father departed for Cambodia in late June to take part in cycling tour that is raising money for an orphanage there.

It was a nine-day trip, covering 450 kilometers of mostly flat land in hot and humid conditions – temperatures touching 40 degrees C most afternoons – traveling through various villages.

Durupt was one of eight cyclists on the trip, as part of Change a Life, Cambodia – a charity run by Compushare, a share registry and stock transfer agency.

Together the cyclists raised more than $40,000 for the orphanage, which boasts a school, a dentistry and a bus that serves those in need in surrounding villages.

Durupt knows about need.

About 16 years ago, he left a broken relationship and started his life over, landing in Vancouver with no more than $5 and the clothes on his back, disconnected from family and friends.

He stayed at a men’s shelter in the city. He had temporary jobs, collected welfare. He reunited with his sister, enrolled at Douglas College and started upgrading courses.

“You keep working your way through the system.”

He is proof that it works.

And that was what his trip was about.

“To go to Cambodia, to make things better, to give kids the opportunity to do something – that’s pretty exciting.”

It’s been a bit of a ride to get there.

He was at college when he first met the woman who would become his wife – Andrea.

He became the manager of a plumbing warehouse in east Vancouver, but wasn’t content there. She encouraged him to

20

OUR COMMUNITY OUR PEOPLE. July 2014

go back to school, again.

He started with a networking administration and design course at BCIT, part-time over two years. He ended up graduating from the Roberts Education Centre in Vancouver and was selected from 130 applicants for a job with Compushare.

He’s been with the company for 10 years now, and as a manager has worked in offices in San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Winnipeg, Calgary and, currently, Vancouver.

Durupt rides to work from his home in Maple Ridge three to five days a week – 1:15 to 1:45 each way, depending on the weather and traffic.

He leaves at 5:30 a.m. most days and doesn’t mind the rain, just not when it’s wet and cold – like much of the past year.

Durupt started riding to work when he and his wife lived in Kerrisdale. It just made more sense to ride his bike or take a bus to work than try to drive through downtown Vancouver.

The couple then moved to Maple Ridge to start a family.

They have a daughter, Meaghan, who is seven now, and the best thing that ever happened to him.

She is the reason he didn’t go on the charity ride sooner. He didn’t want to miss any of her early years.

She’s old enough now that she helped bake and sell goods to help raise money for his charity ride.

Compushare covered the airfare and accommodations. He paid the rest on his own. Every penny he raised goes to the orphanage.

The group raised more than $400,000 in North America.

That will help build a new orphanage in Chinookville, Cambodia.

It makes the ride worth it.

Durupt mostly rides to keep fit, and sane. It is his solitude.

He competes in one mountain bike race a year, not to win, just to do it.

“I ride because it’s my little piece of joy,” he said. “I don’t feel any better than when I’m on a bike.”

To combine cycling and charity work, and see another part of the world, was an opportunity that he looked forward to – meeting new people, learning about their culture, their history.

He had been cautioned about entering villages in Cambodia, how the children run out onto the road and greet visitors. He didn’t want to run anyone over with his bike.

He hopes to do another charity ride again next year, maybe some place different.

To help.

He’s in a place now where he can do that.

And he knows: “No one does it alone.”

fi

t s i e

a

w

MORE THAN JUST FIRES

What Firefighter Scott Kyle loves about his job - is giving back to the community.

By Colleen Flanagan

The first call Scott Kyle ever went on as a volunteer firefighter, he thought the world was coming apart.

Kyle sat with his pack on as the fire truck raced through the streets of Pitt Meadows, sirens blaring. Across from him sat Jack Dougan, another volunteer firefighter. All of them in the truck combined had almost 100 years of firefighting experience. Kyle was intimidated.

Dougan briefed him.

“There’s black smoke everywhere. I think there was just an explosion.”

That gave Kyle goosebumps.

“I didn’t know what I was getting off the truck into, but the way he was painting the picture, it was going to be bad.”

When they arrived, Kyle was confronted with a different

scenario – a whisper of smoke trailing into the sky from underneath the hood of a car.

“We just popped the hood and used the dry can extinguisher,” Kyle says, smiling.

He started as a volunteer firefighter with the Pitt Meadows Fire Department 14 years ago and was hired four years ago as a fire safety technician.

He is partnered with fellow fire safety technician Mike Larsson.

The job requires full equipment and truck maintenance, including all the tools on the truck. They service all the gear, including the breathing apparatuses. The fire hall and the bay has to be cleaned and each piece of hose has to be tested.

They also reach out to schools, teaching children from kindergarten to high school about fire safety and prevention.

“I look at the side of the name of a fire truck and it says Pitt Meadows Fire,” said Kyle. “But underneath that sign that says fire, there should be a list to the bottom of the truck – fire, fire prevention, fire education, public awareness, public assistance, medical calls, airport, trains. The list isn’t just fire.

The list goes on and on and on,” all the things firefighters do.

But that is what Kyle loves about his job, giving back to the community.

Born in Hammond, Kyle moved to Port Coquitlam when he was 11. His father was a volunteer firefighter at No. 1 fire hall in Maple Ridge. He was Kyle’s inspiration, a straight-up guy you could always count on.

“If he was driving down the side of he highway and you were broken down, he would be the first person to pull over

to offer some assistance to you. If you said, ‘Hey I need some people to help me move,’ he would be the first guy there with his truck. He just was always willing to help somebody.”

Kyle grew up in the fire service. He remembers when he was as young as five going to the fire hall with his father and hanging out with the old-timers. He sat in the front of the fire truck during parades.

“There’s nothing that beats when your dad drives a fire truck down the road and you’re like, ‘that’s my dad,’” said Kyle.

When he was in his mid-20s living in Port Moody, preparing to marry his fiancé, he answered an advertisement for volunteer and paid-on-call firefighters for the City of Port Moody.

“At that time, I knew it was something I wanted to do. I knew it was a direction I wanted to do. But there it was in black and white for me to take it,” explained Kyle.

Kyle and his bride moved to Pitt Meadows, where his new neighbour was a volunteer at the Pitt Meadows Fire Department and encouraged him to apply.

However, applicants had to live in the community for at least one year to show stability. Even then Kyle didn’t get a volunteer position on the first try.

Now he has a rewarding career, from helping change a smoke detector to comforting someone after an accident.

“Everything we do when we get into those trucks, we don’t look for a pat on the back. We don’t look for somebody to run around and say, ‘Hey, the fire department is the greatest.’ We just look to go and do a job and do it to the best professional level we can, which we do a damn good job at.”

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STREAM CHAMPION REHABILITATING MCKENNEY CREEK Stream champion Joe Zurich enjoys his volunteer work as an amateur naturalist.

By Steph Troughton Some call him a stream champion, but Joe Zurich is much more modest about his own self-assessment.

Despite the fact he has made a marked difference in the rehabilitation of McKenney Creek, he still calls himself an amateur when it comes pursuing his retirement passion.

“I’m an amateur naturalist. I’ve had no training whatsoever – I’m learning as I go,” admits Zurich.

Six years ago, Zurich and his wife moved to Maple Ridge, leaving behind a career as a plumbing inspector for the City of Surrey.

He has since taken an active interest in Mckenney Creek, one of Alouette River Management Society Adopt-a-Stream tributaries. It flows north into the Alouette River, behind Zurich’s home.

The creek is home to coho and sticklebacks, owls, raccoons, woodpeckers, coyotes and wood ducks – a tree-nesting North American duck whose population is reported to be in serious decline due to severe habitat loss and market hunting.

Rehabilitation work for Zurich consists of many details.

He has cameras positioned nearby for the wooden nesting boxes he has built and attached to trees for wood ducks. The cameras capture the incubation of eggs as well as the chicks that “parachute to the ground,” he says.

He eliminates invasive weeds by hand, routinely filling

garbage bins with what he collects. Pulling litter out of the creek is another task for Zurich, who says he unfortunately sees it float by regularly.

“Daily I will fill one garbage bag of litter that floats down the creek.”

And litter can come in some unexpected forms: “Shopping carts, bicycle parts, you name it, I’ve seen it.”

Although retired, Zurich says he enjoys the volunteer work he does for the sake of the outdoors – a place he was always at home in, even growing up as a child in South Africa.

Zurich recalls encountering scorpions, snakes and spiders when roaming “the bush” in his youth.

“There wasn’t TV, so you played in the bush.”

Nowadays the focus of outdoor activity is a little different.

Zurich is a member of the Maple Ridge Outdoor Club. He combines his clean-up habits with club activities, which include maintaining trails in Golden Ears Provincial Park, camping in tents in snow at the Coquihalla Summit, and the club’s annual polar bear swim, which he started participating in two years ago.

Once apprehensive about the Jan. 1 swim, Zurich now claims the experience is “not that shocking.”

“As soon as you get out, you feel okay.”

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A FUTURE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA

By Colleen Flanagan

Tanner Saunders has stage fright.

He hates drama at school and can’t do theatre.

Last year, a drama teacher at Maple Ridge secondary asked him to try out for the school play and he was adamant in his refusal, a big fat no.

Yet, the talented 13-year-old actor loves the camera, acting in a dozen roles since he started his career three years prior.

“On the set, you would never ever know that he would not go onto a stage. School plays, he did everything to get out of doing school plays,” his mother Krista said.

Born in New Westminster, Tanner started taking acting lessons in September 2011 after trying out background roles a couple of times with his father and brother and deciding he wanted to be up in the front of the scene.

“He was always so quiet and shy. I was like, ‘Are you sure?’”

Then Tanner started working on student and independent films, including a series of short films, Revolve in 2011, and in 2012, The Deep End: Dinosaur, Melman and Blood Moon.

His first television role was on an ABC pilot episode of Red Widow, in which he played Trent, a schoolyard bully.

Tanner was more excited than nervous about the role and felt really famous when he discovered he was given his own trailer.

Tanner loves acting, especially the great friends that he makes and the interesting things he gets to do.

Last July, Tanner spent a month camping in the woods in Chilliwack while filming a movie called Lost Wilderness. In September, for the same movie, he had to go to a ranch in Mission for additional footage, this time with a grizzly bear.

Tanner was nervous at first.

“I didn’t like that,” said Tanner. “As soon as they mentioned bear, I was like, ‘What? I thought this was CGI.’” But the bear and its trainer were behind an electric fence, and Tanner became more comfortable.

“I got to see an actual grizzly bear up close. It was cool once I got past the, ‘Oh my God, I’m probably going to die.’”

Tanner also enjoys some of the costumes he gets to wear.

Last year on the set of When Calls the Heart, with director Michael Landon Jr., Tanner got to wear a 19th Century period costume.

In May 2013, Tanner was nominated for a Young Artist Award, for the most outstanding performance in a short film, called Say Lovey. It was his first time visiting Los Angeles.

It was also his first time on a red carpet.

“You would walk in after getting your picture taken and there was a whole room just for the press and media people,” said Tanner.

“You would go around to each one and they would interview you. That was pretty cool.”

Although Tanner lists his hobbies as sleeping, playing video games and eating, he also enjoys camping, as long as he can still use the internet, and body surfing. He likes camping with his family in Oregon.

“It’s not too hot and not too cold, it’s perfect. And the waves are really big, so it’s perfect for body surfing.”

Tanner is keen on raising money for charity, too. He takes part in Paws for a Cause every year with his family. In 2012, he ran the 10-kilometre race in the Ridge Meadows Hospital

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Fund Run and organized a run in support of the Friends in Need Food Bank. In 2013, he tried organizing another run for the food bank but had problems getting the proper permits. However, he still managed to collect donations.

Tanner’s favourite actor is Robert Downey Junior.

“He is just funny without trying. And no matter what role he does, he always has those sarcastic lines,” explained Tanner, who sees comedy in his own future.

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23

AN ANGEL IN THE ARTS

Lori Ceaser is the administrative and arts program assistant at The ACT.

By Colleen Flanagan Lori Ceaser grew up surrounded by the arts.

She played the piano and was involved in dance, jazz and tap. Her father was president of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Arts Council and also on the board before construction started on the ACT. Her mother danced and played the piano and organ.

When construction on the ACT facility was completed in May, 2003 Ceaser was excited, especially now that her own daughters were involved in dance.

“I remember having to drive to Abbotsford for their dress rehearsals and their recitals and it was kind of a hassle. And when they opened this facility, this was just such a wonderful thing. Something that Maple Ridge really needed,” said Ceaser.

In April 2004, Ceaser saw an advertisement in the local paper for a job in the ticket centre at the ACT. She applied and has been working at there since, now as an administrative and arts program assistant.

She helps arts program manager Carol Cheremkora create programs, assists parents with questions they have, helps the instructors, orders supplies, makes sure the registrations are up to date, as well as being responsible for the program guides.

Ceaser also administers the Arts Angels program, a program that opens up the arts to families that can’t afford programs for those who otherwise couldn’t attend shows.

“It is really fulfilling,” Ceaser said of her work.

“You don’t really want to have more need than you have funds … ” This year the ACT had a nice sum of money to work with and

was able to get a fair number of children into summer programs.

“It’s such a great program that we are able to offer this to the kids, to be able to see the importance of the arts,” stressed Ceaser.

The Arts Angels program is not only for children.

Ceaser remembers a group from Alouette Addictions who attended a performance and one gentleman remarked that he was happy that this was part of his recovery. He explained how great it was to know that he could attend a comedy performance and have a good time and not have a drink.

Ceaser was honoured to be a part of his experience.

One of Ceaser’s goals this year will be to contact more local community organizations, to reach out to more people in need in the community because, she feels, the arts are important everyone.

“I think it shows off our diversity as people, gives people an outlet to share their talents with others, express themselves,” said Ceaser.

“Kids are unique and learning the arts helps them in so many different ways,” she continued, explaining that when he son found band and choir in school he just flourished, making great friends along the way.

Ceaser’s favourite shows at the ACT are the Celtic performances.

“I find when I’m watching a performance I really get into it and I kind of lose myself. Like if I’ve had a bad day, that’s gone. I am so focused with what’s happening on stage and in awe with what’s happening. I am usually mesmerized with the quality of the entertainment,” a feeling everyone should be able to experience.

When Ceaser was working the ticket booth, she would ask people if they had been to the ACT before, a theatre that Ceaser guarantees will offer the viewer an intimate experience, where you can feel one with the performer.

“I would jokingly say to them, ‘I have to warn you, it’s a bit contagious.’”

• To donate to the Arts Angels program call 604-476-2787 or go to www.theactmapleridge.org/donate.

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PHOTOGRAPHER SPENDS DAYS ON THE HOT TARMAC AND THAT’S OK

By Phil Melnychuk

Give an experienced photographer a ride in an airplane and allow him to hang around the airport, and he’ll take any number of photos for your website, print publications and Facebook.

It’s an arrangement that works well for the Pitt Meadows Airport Society and for Trevor Batstone, retired transit supervisor for Coast Mountain Bus Co., and bus driver of 16 years. He’s now a dedicated volunteer at the Pitt Meadows Regional Airport.

He’s liked aircraft and aviation and airports since he was a teen, although he’s never wanted to earn his wings so he could fly them.

“As much as I love aviation, I’ve never had a desire to be a pilot.”

In Pitt Meadows, he covers the entire Pitt Meadows Airport Day and gives the photos to the society for whatever purposes they need. Sometimes that volunteering and hanging around aviation events turns into paid gigs, when he’s hired as a freelance photographer or writer by an aviation publication. He’s just recently started writing and photographing for Skytalk, the trade newspaper out of Vancouver International Airport.

But mainly hanging around the terminals and hangars is simply for the love of aviation.

“I don’t do it for the purposes of making money.”

Ninety-nine per cent of what he does is as a hobby and because he loves giving back to the community.

“I love Pitt Meadows. I love living here.”

Batstone also helps with the city’s economic development corporation, for which he works as an ambassador to wel-

come new businesses.

As a volunteer with the Canadian Museum of Flight, located in Langley, he’ll help with a mobile gift shop that the museum will take to the Hope Flight Fest, the Boundary Bay Airshow and the Chilliwack Flight Fest this summer. At the Abbotsford International Airshow, he switches to freelance photographer and will shoot for two days for aviation magazines.

All of the above seems like sunshine and gravy – a volunteer gig that anyone not petrified of flight would jump at as a way to spend retirement.

He’s paid his dues in the photography world after 20 years as a freelance wedding photographer.

Shooting weddings was never easy work.

Ask Batstone what’s more trying on one’s patience, driving a bus, often filled with abusive louts too willing to smash your teeth in with a sucker punch, or capturing the tender moments on the big day and there’s no hesitation.

The topic brings a quizzical look to his face, like a father remembering the disastrous lessons of teaching his teenage daughter how to drive his prized car.

“Wedding photography,” he says.

Wedding photography.

“Wedding photography,” he repeats.

So offering his skills to local aviation is an easy change of pace.

In return, he gets to ride in those planes to ensure some unique images. The press rides that are offered at the Abbotsford International Airshow always provide some thrills. He’s been

in a plane when it did a barrel role or climbed vertically, then cut its engine before plunging back to earth, a trick known as a hammerhead.

“Been there, done that,” he says.

His most memorable ride was sharing a two-seater biplane while Texas wing walker Teresa Stokes strutted her stuff on the struts, untethered by safety straps.

But an equally memorable ride was as a passenger in a glider, a engineless plane towed aloft then set free to ride the air currents.

“Just beautiful,” he says. “It’s like flying with the birds.”

He’d still like to go up in a CF-18 to feel some real g-forces.

“I keep thinking to myself why I didn’t get into this when I was 20 years old.”

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ART MISSIONARY REFLECTS ON CAREER Kristin Krimmel developed her career by drawing or painting everything of interest, no matter how ordinary.

By Steph Troughton

When home is your studio that is open to the public and your retirement years are spent bolstering the confidence of up-andcoming artists, one just knows art has become a personal mission.

After 50 years of coaching students and painting and drawing all kinds of different subjects in various media, local artist Kristin Krimmel considers herself an “art missionary – somebody who spreads the good word about art,” explains the European-trained and once-upon-a-time starving artist.

And just like the title she earned from refining her skill and

studying her surroundings, Krimmel says she developed her career by drawing or painting everything of interest, no matter how ordinary.

“Everyday life contains all you need for art,” she maintains.

Interesting subject matter for Krimmel can be construction equipment, hydro poles, traffic cones, even kitchen utensils. She draws on all aspects of her life experiences, such as when she worked in property management for the federal government.

“My artistic brain didn’t turn off just because I was working,” says Krimmel.

Her love for painting is evident when she flips through her collection of work. Each piece, no matter what the age, can be described in intricate detail.

She says artists need to be able to explain their work, especially when hosting art exhibitions, a job familiar to Krimmel, who has been on site for all of her art shows, held at various locations throughout the Fraser Valley.

Her next solo exposition, to be featured Sept. 6 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Maple Ridge Art Gallery, will be a retrospective review of her work spanning the decades from 1970 onward.

Because her passion has meant her basement is filled with work reflective of different life experiences, Krimmel’s upcoming Maple Ridge show represents a selected collection of personal time passages.

“It would be impossible to show it all.”

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Having taught art for many years, Krimmel is accustomed to assisting artists develop. She tells them it’s passion and drive that makes them great – and not talent alone.

“I earned my artistic talent through endless hours of drawing and painting. I didn’t inherit it, “ Krimmel emphasizes.

When Krimmel is not painting, she is volunteering as chair of the public Art Steering Committee, a position she was selected for when the committee was established in 2010.

Tasked with advising council on the criteria for the commission of public art installations, Krimmel says the committee has successfully purchased two public art sculptures that can be seen at 224th Street and Lougheed Highway, as well as in Spirit Square, 11925 Haney Place.

Describing them both as modern, Krimmel says the two sculptures, called “Balance” and “Tendance,” are examples of pieces with “lasting value for the community.”

At the time of Balance’s unveiling in September 2012, Krimmel said it captures “not only the spirit of Maple Ridge through its inspirational theme, but also describes, through glass and steel, the modern spirit of this growing community.”

The steering committee continues to look for other pieces of public art in consultation with the community.

• To see examples of Krimmel’s work, visit kristinkrimmel.com/f268316271.

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AT THE MOMENT OF CRISIS Ken Lawley has been a volunteer with the Fraser Health Crisis Line for 14 years.

By Michael Hall Ken Lawley is a two ring guy.

Three is too long.

Answering the phone after one might make him look too eager or anxious, and that’s not what a volunteer with the Fraser Health Crisis Line needs to be.

Lawley, 58, has been a volunteer with the group for the past 14 years.

After his sister lost her battle with lymphoma cancer in 2000, and seeing the help she received, Lawley sought a way to use the emotional energy he was feeling.

“A way to honour her,” something meaningful.

He thought of the cancer society first, but it needed help raising money, and that’s not what he wanted to do.

Through the Volunteer B.C. website, going down the list, he found the crisis line.

It fit his personality, listening and helping.

“I’ve never wanted to stop since.”

Lawley went through two months of training – 35 in a classroom – going over scenarios – the rest practical experience, shadowing calls, then handling one on his own.

He doesn’t remember his first solo call, just how he felt when the phone first rang.

He let it ring once, then twice, then answered it.

“It was a frightening experience,” he said.

The safety net was gone. He thought he might stammer. But

then he realized, the relevant skills he possessed and was taught were still there – to be genuine and calm, to think logically, to be as inviting as he can be, to be tolerant and nonjudgmental, caring and compassionate, confident and composed.

Being a crisis line volunteer isn’t for everyone, but Fraser Health is looking for more.

They work week days, week nights, weekends. It’s a 24-7 service.

Lawley works a sales job in Richmond during the week, so he volunteers on weekends, four-hour shifts. When he retires, he thinks he’ll volunteer even more.

The busy times are between 7-8 p.m. and after 1 p.m. The nature of the calls changes from season to season, but no other time is like spring, when it seems some people have difficulty seeing others outdoors and happy.

Crisis line volunteers work in an open office with four phone stations. They take calls individually, but support each other as needed. They share experiences, lean on each other.

“Lots of friendships are careful in the phone room.”

But it’s more about supporting those on the other end of the line.

He gets about 12 calls a shift, some long, some not so much.

He might recommend an information line or encourage them to talk to a doctor or go to a hospital, or coach them through a breathing exercise.

Some people just want someone to listen to them. Most of

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He tries to get them to a better place.

“People tell us stuff they don’t tell their friends and family,” Lawley said.

“I feel honored by that.”

• The Fraser Health Crisis Line is recruiting volunteers to provide assistance to people in the region who are experiencing emotional distress. To learn more, visit www.options.bc.ca and follow the link for the Crisis line.

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