the north grenville
TIMES
Reaching by direct mail 9,000 homes and businesses in Merrickville/Wolford and North Grenville www.ngtimes.ca
The Voice of North Grenville
Vol. 3, No. 47
November 25, 2015
Bottle Drive for Michelle
The North Grenville Times is Locally Owned and Operated
the MerrickvilleWolford
TIMES pages 21, 22 & 23
by Marguerite Boyer Last Saturday morning, the LeMoine & McShane families and friends set up their trailer in the parking lot of Oxford-on-Rideau Public School in Oxford Mills, to collect bottles and sell baked goods to support Michelle Brazeau. Michelle has Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer. She became symptomatic in late June and was diagnosed in early August. It has spread to her lungs and beyond. It is inoperable. She is a 30 year old mother of three children: Claudia aged 6, Hallie aged 3 and 1 year old Rowan. Her partner of ten years, Roland
Paquin, has become her primary caregiver. Riley McShane, who attends the school, heard about Michelle and asked her Mom how they could help. That’s where they came up with the plan for the bottle drive, with the help of her whole family. They had just the one wagon, but, before the end of the day, it was quite clear that they would need more. The response from the community was overwhelming, said Lisa, mother of Riley. A total of $6,500 was raised through the bottle drive and bake sale. So you can imagine the mountain of bottles collected that day. I went
by around 1:30 (when the above picture was taken) and already they were overflowing. The event was scheduled to run until 3 pm, but when I was again passing by at 5 pm, they were still carting bottles off to the Beer Store. People from the community with trucks offered their help to haul them away. They were still there long after dark, piling cases of empty bottles onto pick-up trucks and into cars. A huge thank you goes out to North Grenville and its surrounding area. Not only for the drop-off of bottles, but also for the incredible support shown by local businesses,
such as the Brigadoon Restaurant, the Branch Restaurant, the Kemptville Family Restaurant, and Salamanders, all of whom had saved all their empty bottles since they had heard of the drive. The family would also like to thank Business Strategies, the Bulk Barn, and Oxford-on-Rideau Public School. The teachers from the school all bought pies prepared for the sale. A thank you also to the Beer Store for their patience and help. According to the store, this was the biggest bottle drive they had ever seen here in North Grenville.