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Coffee Time: QMS donation, summer celebration, Playbox, authors published

• Recently, boarding students from Queen Margaret’s School hosted a variety of fundraising activities (including a coin drive and a two-day garage sale) to gather funds for Big Brothers Big Sisters Cowichan Valley.
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QMS students present a cheque to Big Brothers Big Sisters. (submitted)

• Recently, boarding students from Queen Margaret’s School hosted a variety of fundraising activities (including a coin drive and a two-day garage sale) to gather funds for Big Brothers Big Sisters Cowichan Valley.

They were thrilled to present a cheque for $800.50 to Erin Generous, executive director of BBBS on Friday, June 9.

• Several dozen families from diverse backgrounds ducked out of a rained-out picnic in Centennial Park into St. John’s Anglican Church Hall for an inclusive and welcoming start-of-summer celebration Thursday, June 22.

Cowichan Intercultural Society’s Multicultural Leadership Group and the Arcadian Early Learning Society co-hosted this friendly festival of fun, home-made entertainment and pizza with funding from United Way and help from the Inclusive Leadership Co-operative, Cowichan Green Community, Safe Youth Cowichan and Canadian Mental Health Association’s Bike Works Program.

“With so many youth volunteering and over 100 children, parents and grandparents from throughout our community involved, the spirit in the air was one of joy, friendship, carrying babies, playing with children and great conversations,” said volunteer Lynn Smith in summing the event up.

Event co-ordinator, Linda McDaniels from Cowichan Intercultural Society thanked the 20 volunteers, “Your songs, your offerings, and your support made this a wonderful event that welcomed many people from different places in our community who showed each other and the world the hospitality that our Cowichan Valley Warm Land is all about.”

• Local residents Liz Maxwell Forbes, of Crofton, and N. Newell, of Duncan, have stories included in the new publication Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Spirit of Canada.

Maxwell Forbes is published in three previous Chicken Soup for the Soul books as well as in other anthologies. Her latest book, Growing Up Weird, is her memoir of growing up with eccentric parents in Oak Bay in the 1940s and 1950s.

N. Newell worked for BC Tel/Telus for 34 years and won several service awards for his work. He is now retired.

• A new Playbox has been installed in Kin Park in Duncan. Playboxes are boxes in parks that families can request the lock combination to and then use all of the sports equipment in it for their time at the park. When they are done they lock it back up for the next family. The Playbox was sponsored by the Kinettes of Duncan and maintained by North Cowichan Parks and Recreation.

• Twenty British Columbians have been named to the Canada 150 Land Trust Honour Roll in celebration of the Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia’s 20th Anniversary.

British Columbians from all parts of the province are the first recipients of the Canada 150 Land Trust Honour Roll. The program, coordinated by the Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia LTABC, will recognize 150 British Columbians who have contributed to the success of land conservation and environmental protection in the province during Canada’s 150 celebrations.

Among the recipients is Adam Taylor of Shawnigan Lake, who served on the board of LTABC (co-chair for two years) and led the successful operations of Habitat Conservation Trust as executive director from 2009 to 2015.

Marking its 20th anniversary, LTABC has launched the project to bring awareness of private land conservation and to recognize individuals who have helped protect ecologically sensitive lands as part of the Canada land trust movement. Each recipient will receive a certificate and commemorative pin from the Land Trust Alliance of BC and will be recognized by their local community land trust.

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The Kinettes have sponsored a Playbox in Kin Park. (submitted)