War Amps hold seminar for families
An organization started by amputee veterans returning from the First World War celebrates its 100th anniversary with a seminar aimed at child amputees from across British Columbia.
The War Amps was created for veterans returning maimed from the First World War. With a philosophy of amputees helping amputees, they helped each other adapt to their new reality and also served as advocates for seriously disabled veterans.
With the next generation of war amputees following the Second World War, the organization established the Key Tag Service to provide meaningful employment for members — and a welcome service for the public.
In time, the War Amps developed programs to serve all amputees, including children.
The 2018 B.C. Child Amputee seminar helped mark the 100th anniversary of the War Amps by bringing together child amputees from across the province, including Lincoln Davis, 7, of Victoria.
Born a left-hand amputee, Davis is eligible to receive financial assistance for the cost of artificial limbs and recreational devices.
The seminar gives amputees and their parents the chance to learn about the latest in artificial limbs, how to deal with teasing and bullying and how to parent an amputee child.
“Although the association has developed many innovative and unique programs over the past 100 years, there is still much to do to ensure amputees, like Lincoln, have the artificial limbs they need to lead full and active lives,” said Danita Chisholm, executive director of the CHAMP program. “With the public’s support of the Key Tag and Address Label Service, our vital programs for amputees will carry on long into the future.”
The War Amps receives no government grants.
The Key Tag Service employs amputees and people with disabilities.
The service has returned more than 1.5 million sets of lost keys since its inception. Each key tag has a coded number. If your lost keys are found, they will be returned to you, by courier, free of charge. For more information, go to waramps.ca.
Grandmothers train for cycle tour
Do you think you can keep up with a group of active grandmothers as they embark, once again, to train for their annual 275- or 50-kilometre Vancouver Island bicycle tours in September?
Victoria Grandmothers for Africa are looking for new cyclists to cycle for strength and solidarity with them on their group tour.
The annual 275-km fundraising cycle tour from Campbell River to Victoria is challenging, “but just the right amount of challenge,” say some participants.
Most years, 30 women, ranging in age from 55 to 75, and at all fitness levels, start training in the spring for both distances. The groups generally average about 18 km/h, although several members can ride faster.
During the rides, you will learn about cycling, toughness in the face of life’s challenges and about the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. Backed by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the campaign supports families and communities in the poorest and most AIDSaffected parts of Africa.
When riding you can ponder on: Growing old, staying strong and learning to care about the rest of the world.
Members of the group report that riding their bikes up big hills and over long distances helps them feel a sense of solidarity with hard-working African grandmothers.
The group’s unofficial motto is: We will not rest until they can rest.
Their fundraising has raised more than $1 million for their African peers since 2006.
Weekly training rides will start in earnest April 16.
For more information, to donate or to join either bicycle tour, go to victoriagrandmothersforafrica.ca.
Nurse treated Rohingya refugees
Victoria resident Katherine Hensman, 24, recently returned from spending three months in Bangladesh treating Rohingya refugees.
This was the fourth time Hensman, a nurse at Royal Jubilee Hospital, was deployed with Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization. It provides aid to people as a key part of its missionary work.
Hensman was previously in Ecuador after a 2016 earthquake and twice in Iraq in 2017, where she spent a total of about 10 weeks at an emergency field hospital treating victims of fighting for the city of Mosul.
For more information, go to samaritanspurse.ca.
‘Rescued’ food on the menu
The Canadian Culinary Federation Victoria and the Island Chefs Collaborative are hosting a Mustard Seed Food Rescue Project production party on Monday.
Teams from the Mustard Seed and the culinary community are taking part in the fun event.
The project will provide a pallet of food recovered from local grocery stores. Volunteers from the Mustard Seed, the culinary community — and anyone else who wants to participate — become part of a black box-style competition.
The task of each team — professional and otherwise — is to create gastronomic delights utilizing only rescued food. Creations can include soups, sauces, curries, stocks, stews, chili, pickles, pesto, salads, etc. It will be fast, furious and fun. Nobody will know what is coming, but all the tools and equipment in the Culinary Arts professional cook-training kitchen is available to create whatever they can in just a few hours.
Healthy, nutritious food for everyone is served at 5:30 p.m.
Join the party, at 3 to 6 p.m. or 5 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Culinary Arts Centre, Camosun College Interurban Campus. Please confirm your participation to walkers@camosun.ca.
Campaign put socks on hundreds of feet
All 10 Rotary Clubs in Greater Victoria wish to thank Victorians for their generosity during their recent Socks for the Feet of the Street project.
They collected and distributed 200 pairs of socks to the needy at the shelter in Sooke, 106 to Rock Bay Landing and another 225 split between Sandi Merriman and Anawin House.
For more information, go to rotaryvictoria.org.
Pair hitting the road across Canada
Next month, two recently retired 60-year-olds, Juan Manuel Alonso and Luis Nasim, will embark on a life-changing journey to support individuals diagnosed with prostate cancer.
On May 26, they plan to cycle for 100 days across Canada, cycling about 8,000 km to raise awareness and funds for prostate-cancer research.
The pair, who live in Montreal, will start their adventure when they travel from Montreal to Victoria, where they will dip the back tires of their bikes in the waters of the Pacific Ocean on May 26.
For the following 100 days, they will cycle across Canada to Cape Spear, N.L., where they will dip their bikes’ front tires in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean before returning to Montreal.
They will document their journey on Facebook: 100 days across Canada.
Tax receipts will be issued by the Cedars Cancer Foundation, cedars.ca/cedars/en/fundraisers/100_days_across_canada.
Find out what’s up with Open Space
Victoria’s art community is invited to What’s Up With Open Space?, a community forum to answer questions and heal relationships that have been strained by recent conflicts and changes at Open Space, April 8.
A lot has happened at Open Space in the span of about a month — Aboriginal curator France Trépanier publicly resigned. The Aboriginal Curatorial Collective boycotted the call for an exhibitions curator. Artists and organizations withdrew or suspended programs, funders started asking questions and the board of directors stepped down.
At the forum, Open Space’s new board will give brief presentations and then invite interested parties to ask questions and share concerns.
The event is free and open to the public. It runs 4 to 7 p.m. April 8 at 510 Fort St. (second floor). Open Space is not wheelchair accessible and is accessed by a flight of 15 stairs. There are two gender-inclusive washrooms, one multi-stall and one single stall with a urinal. For more information, go to openspace.ca.
WIN is looking for furniture
Women in Need is in great need of gently used furniture and other household items for women about to embark on a new beginning.
The organization’s New Start Program supports women ready to leave a transition house.
It does so by providing everything they need to set up a new home for a woman and her children — such as apartment-sized furniture, beds, kitchen items, linens and other household items.
Items that are most in demand are loveseats, mattress and boxspring sets, small dressers, small kitchen tables and chairs, armchairs and coffee tables.
Call to schedule a furniture pickup, or bring gently used furniture to 785 Pandora Ave. For more information, call 250-4804006 ext. 204 or win@womeninneed.ca. For information, go to womeninneed.ca.
Elvises help raise funds
Three Elvises, the early Elvis, the 1968 comeback Elvis and the 1970s Elvis, will appear at a fundraiser for St. Andrew’s Regional High School on Saturday.
If that’s not enough, the disc jockey will be a timeless Marilyn Monroe.
The event, fittingly called A Tribute to Elvis, is a fundraiser to raise money for the school’s fine arts and music wing and sportsfield development project.
The night features Ronnie Scott, an award winning Elvis tribute artist, in an energy-filled evening.
Tickets for the 19-plus night are $50. Doors open at 6:30, with the show starting at 7 p.m. Saturday at the school, 880 McKenzie Ave. The evening includes a cash bar and light snacks. Tickets are available from the parish office at any Vancouver Island Catholic school office. For more information, call 250-479-1414.
Saanich wants you to be prepared
The District of Saanich is participating in Emergency Management B.C.’s Tsunami Preparedness Week by hosting an emergency preparedness presentation April 18 at the G.R. Pearkes Recreation Centre.
Tsunami Preparedness Week is April 9 to 15, and the municipality is encouraging residents to develop their own emergency plan — and understand the tsunami threat in Saanich.
“Tsunami Preparedness Week provides a great opportunity for Saanich residents to develop or update their emergency plan. The January 23 tsunami warning issued by Emergency Management B.C. was an important reminder that residents need to understand where the risk areas are in Saanich,” said Frank Macdonald, Saanich deputy fire chief. “The primary tsunami risk in our region is from a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and the strong shaking from this event is nature’s warning to move to higher ground or inland, four metres vertical from the high tide line.”
There will be free emergency preparedness presentations at recreation centres throughout the community, with information on how to be self-sustaining for a minimum of seven days after a disaster.
Each household can take home a copy of Prepare Yourself, A Guide to Emergency Preparedness in the Capital Region, to help with emergency planning.
The Capital Regional District has conducted a tsunami risk assessment. It has identified tsunami planning zones and created a tsunami brochure with a risk map for Saanich.
The Saanich maps will be on display in Saanich Municipal Hall from April 9 to 13.
Admission to the emergency preparedness presentation is free. It runs 7 to 8 p.m. April 18 at the G.R. Pearkes Recreation Centre, 3100 Tillicum Rd. Register for the course ( #852961) by calling 250-475-5400.
Learn more about tsunami preparedness and the Saanich Emergency Program at saanich.ca.
Concert raising funds for Our Place
Singer Amy Bishop will perform in concert at the Centre for Spiritual Living, April 15, to benefit Our Place.
The Calgary entertainer recently brought judges of CTV’s The Launch to tears with her rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
Her voice, a combination of smooth pavement and rough gravel, engages her audiences with high notes and in tears with her softness.
Tickets for the concert are $25 at the door. Door open at 1, with the concert starting at 1:30 p.m. April 15 in the centre’s Eastern Star Hall, 3281 Harriet Rd. Doors open at 1 p.m. Bishop will autograph CD’s following the concert. Proceeds to Our Place. For more information, go to cslvictoria.org.