Make a difference for African aid
The music of George Gershwin is being enlisted to raise money for aid projects in Africa on Saturday at Cordova Bay United Church.
For the Love of Africa, a registered charity formed in 2006, is hosting An Evening With Gershwin to raise money for its projects in the Dodoma area in Tanzania.
Linda Ryder, treasurer of the charity, said the group hosts fundraising events every year, from water-garden tours to barn dances and now a night of music by Gershwin, the American composer and creator of the 1934 opera Porgy and Bess.
Ryder agreed these events might not have direct connections to Africa, but they are always interesting and lots of fun.
She said For the Love of Africa was born after a 2004 talk by an African visitor to Cordova Bay United Church. It has about 50 committed members. They are not all parishioners, but they are all dedicated to helping.
Since its formation as a charity, For the Love of Africa has raised about $650,000. Working with aid groups and non-government organizations it has built four primary schools, a daycare centre, a medical clinic and a technical school in Tanzania.
An Evening with Gershwin is at 7:30 p.m., on Saturday, June 3, at the Cordova Bay United Church, 813 Claremont Ave.
Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online at fortheloveofafrica.ca/gershwin or at selected Victoria-area businesses: Tanner’s Books, Allison Piano, Russell Books, Seaberry Garden and Flower.
Show will celebrate wooden boats
Boat-builder, furniture-maker and artist Tony Grove has spent a lifetime working with wood, fitting and shaping it. Grove is now recreating its image in art.
The Maritime Museum of British Columbia, 634 Humboldt St., will open a special summer show of Grove’s paintings celebrating wooden boats, their textures, curves, lines and colour.
The show opens to the public on Thursday, 7-9 p.m., and runs until September. The art work will also be for sale.
Grove apprenticed at a Vancouver shipyard before turning to wooden craft. From his boatyard and studio on Gabriola Island, he has also taught boatbuilding and ship’s carpentry.
Tree-planters will offset carbon
Volunteers and carbon-off-setters will gather at Empress Acres farm just south of Nanaimo next weekend to plant 3,000 Empress Splendor trees.
The Victoria company World Tree is planning the event as the start of a carbon offset and lumber project. Companies can buy the carbon offset and later split the profit from the saw logs with World Tree and the landowner.
Privately owned Empress Acres farm will plant 20 acres with Empress Splendor trees.
The Empress Splendor is an fast-growing hardwood already cultivated for its lumber in the U.S. and in Central and South America. It can reach saw-log size in under 10 years.
For more information about the tree and the carbon-offset program, go online to worldtreecop.com.
Mary Lake enlists Power of 2
The 73 acres surrounding Mary Lake in Highlands has been left entirely to nature since 1947, when a logger sold it to a compatriot of Victoria artist Emily Carr.
Rumours say a woman, maybe Carr herself, spent time there toting along animals in cages, perhaps her pet monkey.
The area is slated for preservation and inclusion in a greenbelt hiking trail joining Thetis Lake, Gowlland Tod Park and Mount Work.
The Greater Victoria Greenbelt Society has already raised much of the $2.6-million purchase price. But it still needs about $700,000 more.
So the society is launching a new campaign, the Power of 2, to challenge supporters of Mary Lake’s preservation to initiate the power of a greater community.
Each Mary Lake supporter, or guardian, is challenged to sell two memberships in seven days. Those members are then challenged to induct two more and so on.
The Power of 2 Challenge started on May 22 and runs to July 24. Becoming a guardian costs $30 for one, $25 for student or senior, $45 for a family and $100 for a business.
For more information about the campaign and possible prizes, go online to: marylakeconnections.ca, and click on “Power of Two.”
Learn about families at the museum
The Royal B.C. Museum wants you to meet the family.
The museum’s new feature exhibit, Family: Bonds and Belonging, opening June 2, is an interactive exploration of the human family and how the institution has played across B.C. throughout its history.
Also, the museum will launch a new book, The Language of Family. It offers personal perspectives and thoughts from curators, poets, authors and thinkers on family.
The exhibit examines family issues such as bloodlines, community, place, culture and traditions.
Well-known families are examined, including that of Lt.-Gov. Judy Guichon, whose family arrived in B.C. about 150 years ago from France. Also, longstanding family connections of First Nations peoples are examined.
The exhibit even takes a look at families and family relations of LGBTQ people.
Visitors can learn how to begin researching their own family trees with advice on how to look into archives and other records.
For more information go online to royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.
Salvation Army centre opens after renovation
The Salvation Army is opening its newly renovated Victoria Addictions and Rehabilitation Centre Friday.
Salvation Army members, politicians, dignitaries, clients and the public are invited to the view the facility that aims to provide help to people suffering from addictions.
The new “ARC” will feature 21 full-time residential beds, 152 temporary beds and 30 extreme-weather spaces. Counselling and rehabilitation are available on a daily basis.
ARC will also feature a lifeskills lab equipped with computers, new furniture, new lights, a new chapel, a new entranceway and a community kitchen already serving 3,500 meals per month.
The idea behind the renovation is to modernize the 35-year-old centre and improve the sense of dignity for the clients, said Patricia Mamic, Salvation Army spokeswoman.
Opening of Salvation Army Victoria ARC is 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, June 2, at the centre’s downtown location at 525 Johnson St.
Welcome summer with Strawberry Dance
Party-time rock and pop, fresh-picked, Saanich Peninsula strawberries and high-energy dancing offer a unique chance to welcome summer on June 10.
This year’s annual Strawberry Dance at the Saanich Fairgrounds, featuring treats made from local strawberries picked that day, will help raise money to fix up the barn at the fairgrounds.
Money raised will also assist Peninsula groups, Brentwood Bay Community Association and Saanichton Village Association.
Music will be provided by Victoria’s popular party band Shaky Ground, playing tunes from the 1960s, ’70s, ’80, ’90s and beyond.
Raise the Roof Strawberry Dance is at the Saanich Fairgrounds, 1528 Stelly’s Cross Rd. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $15 each or $25 a couple and sold in advance only. Buy yours at the Saanich Fairgrounds office, Breadstuffs Bakery in Brentwood Bay or Fresh Cup Roastery Cafe in Saanichton.
For more information go online to saanichfair.ca.
Young painters explore social justice
Catch a glimpse of young people’s ideas about social justice, with a show produced by students at École Arbutus Global Middle School.
The show, called Just Art: Paint Your Mark showcases middle-school students’ creative exploration of social-justice issues. The works include paintings, drawings, photography and mixed media.
The exhibit also highlights the importance of the unique voices of young people in every community.
Just Art: Paint Your Mark opened on May 18 and continues until Wednesday at the Cedar Hill Recreation Centre, 3220 Cedar Hill Rd.
Bursary assists students with disabilities
Post-secondary students with disabilities attending school on Vancouver Island have until Wednesday to apply for the Lisa Huus Memorial Bursary.
Worth $500 to $2,000, the bursary was created for students with special needs, especially those who need a personal attendant, a mechanical device, ongoing major therapies or other significant special assistance.
The bursary, administered with the help of the Children’s Health Foundation of Vancouver Island, was created by the family of Lisa Pauline Huus.
She was born with a rare neuro-muscular disorder, Werding Hoffman disease, that completely immobilized her. Most children born with the disease die before two.
But Huus lived to graduate from Claremont High School and enrolled at the University of Victoria, studying sociology. She died in 1988 one month before her 21st birthday.
Her family started the memorial fund to assist young people who won’t let special needs interfere with their learning.
To learn about the Lisa Huus Memorial Bursary, go to the website of the Children’s Health Foundation of Vancouver Island at childrenshealthvi.org. Click on “How We Help,” scroll down and click on “Bursaries and Scholarships.”