CHILLIWACK TIMES THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 2012
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Saving toads with baking
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‘gingineered’ design sold to raise funds for Ryder Lake’s vulnerable amphibians BY CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
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Harrison Mills business has “gingineered” a fundraiser to help Chilliwack’s western
toads. Every year, hundreds of thousands of dime-sized baby western toads make a perilous migration across Ryder Lake and Elk View roads from the wetlands where they were spawned to the upland forests where they will make their adult home. Until five years ago, when the City of Chilliwack and the Fraser Valley Conservancy first started putting up barricades during the migration, the roads used to be slick with the squished bodies of the now-blue-listed toadlets every summer. But the roadblocks are expensive and unpopular with motorists, and a long-term solution—funneling the baby toads through grated ditches under the roads—will cost about $20,000 per structure. This year Dawn Ogden, founder Gingerbread Giant, has crafted a creative way to raise some of that much-needed cash. Through the art of “gingineering” (a term her business has coined and trademarked), she has designed a gingerbread toad and will donate part of the proceeds from every pattern sale to the Fraser Valley Conservancy’s toad conservation efforts. “It’s definitely a different type of fundraising,” said conservancy executive assistant Suzie MacMillan, “but it’s always good to have
Submitted photos
Patterns for the gingerbread toad include step-by-step instructions.
Submitted photo
Dawn Ogden of Gingerbread Giant puts the finishing touches on gingerbread toads she designed to help Chilliwack’s western toads.
other people care about the things for her family for 25 years but only launched her busiyou’re doing.” ness last fall. W h e n a s s e m - “[I]t’s always good to The toad, like all bled, the 13-piece have other people her creations, may gingerbread toad stands about four care about the things look fancy, but she said the detailed inches and is you’re doing.” instructions make about five inches wide. Suzie MacMillan it easy. “If you can bake “I probably made a cookie, you can him about five or gingineer it,” she six times before I got him right,” said Ogden, who said. “All the patterns have step-byhas made elaborate gingerbreads step instructions.”
Aspiring gingineers can get all the recipes they need for gingerbread and icings free on the Gingerbread Giant website; the only thing they pay for are the patterns. Besides wanting to help out C h i l l i w a c k’s w e s t e r n t o a d l e t s (“I’ve always just been a big animal lover. I don’t even kill spiders,” she said) Ogden said she also wants to provide families with an affordable activity they can do together. The toad pattern also has potential for school and home-school settings as an activity for science units dealing with amphibians. “And these things last forever,” Ogden said, “so once you’ve bought it, you can make toads forever.” MacMillan, meanwhile, sees this kind of environmentally conscious business initiative as the way of the future for non-profits in a time of shrinking government funding. “We’re looking into new types of fundraising where this is kind of a corporate responsibility,” she said. “It’s along the lines of there’s a profit for the planet.” ◗ For more information about the juvenile western toad migration, which could begin any day, visit www.fraservalleyconservancy.ca or call 604-625-0066.
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July real estate sales surprisingly hot
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BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
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fter months of flat sales and cautiously optimistic comments from Chilliwack real estate professionals, July proved to be surprisingly robust. Home sales in the local market were up 25 per cent last month over July 2011, from 179 sales to 223. “Resale housing demand came in much stronger than expected in July,”
Wild fluctuations over the last five years in summer month real estate said Cynthia Admiraal, president of the Chilliwack & District Real Estate Board (CADREB). “In fact, when you adjust the data to account for normal seasonal variations, July was actually the strongest month for home sales in the region since late 2009.”
The average home price last month was $312,418, up one per cent from July 2011. There were 123 single-family homes sold last month, 57 townhouses, 18 apartments, 14 mobile homes and 11 houses with acreages.
The value of home sales last month was $69.7 million, up 26 per cent over July 2011’s $55.1 million. Total residential listings sat at 1,852 at the end of July, down three per cent from July 2011. July has seen some wild sales fluctuations in recent years with 144 residential sales worth $44.1 million in 2010, 255 sales worth $77 million in 2009, and 180 sales worth $54.3 million in 2008.