Rotary, Nightingale Project seeking dental assistance
The Sunrise Rotary Club of Penticton and the Ukraine Nightingale Project are asking local dentists to help with emergency care for Ukrainian children whose families have been displaced by the war.
UNP has assisted 18 families with 19 children to relocate in the South Okanagan following the Russian invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago.
“About half of the children have dental coverage through their parents’ employers. This project is focused on the nine children who have urgent needs and do not have any coverage,” said UNP director Jennifer Martison.
The Sunrise Club has provided $2,000 to initiate the program.
To stretch those dollars as far as possible the Sunrise Club is asking dentists to consider providing their services either on a pro bono or a reduced fee basis, explained
Sunrise youth services director Mac Paterson.
Dr. Andrew Dawn of Penticton and Dr. Jordon Noftle of Oliver have provided dental assistance to Ukrainian children in the past.
“The lack of dental care experienced as a result of the war in Ukraine is a major contributing factor to the dental problems that the children are dealing with,” Dawn said.
For further information dentists can contact the Sunrise Club at www.pentictonrotary.com and leave a message under contact.
“On behalf of UNP I want to thank the Sunrise Club for spearheading this project and also to thank the other Okanagan Rotary Clubs, as well as some on Vancouver Island, who have lent their support to several UNP initiatives,” Martison said.
For information about UNP visit www. ukrainenightingaleproject.ca or email jmartison@shaw.ca.
I flew 4,000 kilometres to Ontario for the eclipse and all I got was a cloudy day.
Damn April Showers.
But the cloudiness added an interesting -- it still felt like night time for the two minutes of totality, yet daytime skies could be observed to the north, so it was easy to appreciate the scale of the eclipse’s vast shadow as it made its way overhead like a mothership.
Back in the day, before humans gained an understanding of the cosmos, a sudden shift from daytime to night and back to day would have been a trippy experience. And it still confuses the wildlife -- mosquitoes came out and birds were overcome with a sudden urgency to fly away.
Now that we can track the phenomena, we can’t help but gravitate towards them. Niagara Falls experienced its busiest day in history. School schedules had to be adjusted for the event.
And check out the heat map of AirB&Bs across the continent showing a giant line of sold-out spaces in line with the path of totality.
Even when there’s not a moon blocking out the sun, it’s a cool experience to see it as a neon orange circle through protective glasses.
And while the sun can’t be much larger than the moon from our perspective in order for an eclipse to work, it still appears surprisingly small up in the sky. It feels a lot bigger during sunrises and sunsets.
I don’t plan very many things far ahead, but you can count on me visiting Alberta in August 2044 for Canada’s next total solar eclipse.
Dan Walton is an editor with Okanagan Newspaper Group
who resides in Summerland.