I realize the Christmas season is about done, but it’s never too late to thank folks.
Unless you’ve been dead or in Edmonton, you’ll realize every year the Cochrane Activettes operate and collect for a food bank.
It obtains and donates food to local families that don’t have enough and it’s done all year long but Christmas is very busy and very special.
So the Activettes need a location every year to sort out the food and toys and prepare the Christmas packages.
This year they located in an empty portion of the No Frills building.
It was on the west side and was ideal.
Lots of space, great parking, a nice warm building and a staff at No Frills that simply couldn’t do enough for the Activettes.
But there was one problem but it didn’t last long.
The building is not owned by No Frills and the owner was charging rent to the Activettes so No Frills manager Mark Johnston got involved.
A phone call was made to the real estate company looking after the building and after Mark explained the great community work done by the Activettes guess what?
Yep, no rental charge.
And that’s not all. Prior to Christmas, the Activettes receive a great many donations from generous Cochrane folks, but sometimes after Christmas there is a bit of a let down.
But not this year. Manager Mark Johnston and No Frills presented the Activettes with a $1,000 cheque to keep the larder full after Christmas.
No wonder Cochrane is such a great community.
Speaking of living in such a great community.
I’ve had this idea for a while now so maybe its time has come.
It’s about human organ donations.
You know, the things we won’t need when we’re dead but would certainly help others.
Like eyes. I’m not sure many would want my old blinkers considering what they’ve seen, but organ donation is so easy now and makes so much sense.
Many, many lives are saved these days by organ transplants. So why not make that a community project. Maybe a service club would like to lead the way for us.
I searched the web for something on organ donations and while I did find a couple of websites my email went unanswered.
But there must be a way we can do this. Maybe we can become known as the town that saved a thousand lives.
Which has to be better than being known as the town with a double-decker bus.
Speaking of buses.
Isn’t it interesting that our mayor goes into great detail basically accounting for every nickel involved in pay increase for the firemen, yet we hear nothing on how much all the surveys cost for buses.
Firemen have not had a pay increase since 2008, so they are obviously long overdue.
I’m sure the increase would make far more sense if councillors and the mayor hadn’t had a pay increase for five years, but that’s obviously asking too much.
