THURSDAY JANUARY 24, 2019 VOL. 45, NO. 04
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WHAT WILL THE HERON LOOK LIKE NEXT WEEK? The Undercurrent is getting a makeover and this will be the last edition with the look we’ve had for the past decade.
Montessori fundraiser raises thousands for school’s legal fees BRONWYN BEAIRSTO EDITOR
It was a boogying takeover last Thursday as dozens of children took to the Bowen Island Pub’s dance floor during a fundraiser for the Montessori school. DJ Mom and Leo Chan were spinning for the youngsters, while a bean bag toss and silent auction helped raise money for the legal-feeladen institution. Bowen Island Montessori School lost a three-year-long, widely-publicised B.C. Human Rights Tribunal case in a decision that came down last month. Though the preschool hasn’t said how much the case cost them, spokesperson Maria Turnbull did say back in December that the financial burden was substantial for the institution. As part of the decision, the preschool also had to pay $12,000 to the complainants. Their insurance didn’t cover any of the remedy payment. A former Montessori parent set up a GoFundMe campaign in the wake of the decision. The page raised more than $10,000 for the school and soon filled with notes of support from islanders. Now that the dust has settled somewhat, current Montessori parent Jen Lafferty felt the time was ripe for a fundraiser, so she organized the pub night Continued on page 8
Shasta Martinuk and a small group of demonstrators chant their way up Trunk Road during Bowen’s third annual women’s march. The international event began in 2017, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump took his oath of office. Photo: Bronwyn Beairsto
Food bank vandalized –window smashed, food ruined
BRONWYN BEAIRSTO EDITOR
The food bank at the Little Red Church is always open. Any hour of the day or night you can take or leave food. Which is why it was odd when, come last Saturday morning, church board members found someone had
broken into the little room, which also acts as an entryway to the church. “They’d piled stuff up by the window [likely] so they could get in,” said Lynn Williams, who works at the church. Someone had smashed a small window behind some of the shelves of food, sending glass out over the
shelves. Flour, maple syrup and other food spilled over on the floor. Because the window broke over the food, at least half a garbage bag full of food had to be thrown out. “You didn’t know what had glass on it,” said Williams. Though the window was broken, Williams said that it is too small for someone to enter through and there
were still jagged glass edges in the frame, so the person or people must have, in the end, entered through the door. Williams said that the lock into the nave of the church had also been tampered with but it would have been a futile exercise to enter there anyway. Continued on page 6