SUPPORTING BC THROUGH ITS WORST NATURAL DISASTER
Last week we told you about our efforts to support British Columbians through, what many are calling, the province’s worst natural disaster.
The response to our appeal for help for the victims of this climate disaster was tremendously gratifying. People from our entire network across Canada stepped up and offered to help.
Below are three further opportunities for all of us to extend that generosity. These are the options that Amy Hoey and our team found in the Abbotsford area to provide direct help to impacted people, who may not have access to government support..
Matt Livingstone Family:
Matt is the site operator at Fraser Valley Biogas, which is an RNG project in Abbotsford, owned and operated by one of our clients, EverGen Infrastructure. Matt and his family have been displaced by theevacuation order and flooding – below is a picture taken in their living room just a few days ago. Chase Edgelow, EverGen’s CEO, has passed along Matt’s email and said he’s sure that Matt would be appreciative of any support. If you’d like to connect with Matt, please let me know.
Ed Fast is the Member of Parliament for Abbotsford, and someone I know quite well. I reached out to Ed last week asking for his recommendations. Right off the top, he said his first stop would be to call Rod Santiago of Archway Community Services. I spoke to Rod and learned about a number of different efforts his group was doing with flood relief assistance. By far, the biggest area of concern for his group was helping about 150 Temporary Foreign Workers who were displaced from their place of work with little more than the shirts on their backs. Temporary Foreign Workers are key to the operations of the dairy and produce farms in the Fraser Valley. They are often an unrecognized force in the labour market, which many take for granted. They are the pivotal to our supermarkets being stocked with agricultural produce.
These workers, Rod told me, are from mainly Central American countries, have no family here, and are lacking even the basic essentials now like underwear and socks. They are being housed in temporary shelters with a number of groups, but Archway’s volunteers are focussed on delivering ongoing material help and support from these workers. Donations to Archway can be made through Donate: Archway Community Services. Rod can be reached at Rod.Santiago@archway.ca or directly
at 604-308-1422.
Go-Fund-Me: here’s a link on How to Help Those Affected by the BC Flooding | GoFundMe – it offers a wide variety of areas where people can help, so there might be things in here that will appeal to you.
If any of these options appeal to you, thanks in advance for helping any of these groups out. You can connect directly with them and make your contribution directly – again, we’ll pass along Matt Livingstone’s email if you’d like it.
Based on pledges of support we received from last week’s email, it would appear that more than $10,000 will be going directly to a mix of the causes above.
Any questions, please let me know.
Thanks so very much again for your support and interest.
Rick Peterson
President