Browsed by
Category: Not-For-Profits

Paddleboarders Take a Spill for Pihl and BrainTrust Canada

Paddleboarders Take a Spill for Pihl and BrainTrust Canada

Okay – that was a lot of water-logged family fun.           On a super overcast August Sunday morning at Rotary Beach Park, BrainTrust Canada held its 4th Annual Pihl Law Paddle for Prevention and board-shorts battle to the buoy and back. All the requisite aquatic tools were provided for this competitive beach jamboree – beautiful-and-calm Okanagan Lake, seven paddle boards and paddles, seven paddling lanes, seven stationary buoys, and the seventh-heaven smooth sounds of emcee and…

Read More Read More

An American in Kelowna – Heel of an Effort for Shoe Bank Canada

An American in Kelowna – Heel of an Effort for Shoe Bank Canada

In the candy-cane lyrics of pop-princess Britney Spears: “Oops!… I did it again.” Did what? Collected donated shoes (women’s, men’s, and children’s) on behalf of Shoe Bank Canada at various sites in Kelowna in our second annual Christmas Holiday promotion.     Based on last year’s benchmark of amassing 803 pairs of shoes, we had a tried-and-true formula for finding footwear by setting up Shoe Bank Canada donation bins in the following locations:  Kelowna General Hospital (three separate entrances), UBC…

Read More Read More

An American in Kelowna – Shoe Bank Canada Goes Batty and Barefoot on the Boardwalk

An American in Kelowna – Shoe Bank Canada Goes Batty and Barefoot on the Boardwalk

Holy caped crusader – Batman wears a size 10!       That’s what I learned on Saturday, September 12th at the 2nd Annual Barefoot on the Boardwalk fundraising effort put on by Shoe Bank Canada and its slew of volunteers and board members. The festivities took place on a gloriously warm late morning and early afternoon adjacent to Kelowna Water Park and Hot Sands Beach. The “Canadians Helping Canadians” two kilometres family-and-friends march strolled the City Park boardwalk –…

Read More Read More

An American in Kelowna – How I “Soled Out” 803 Ways Thanks to UBC Southern Medical Program and Kelowna General Hospital

An American in Kelowna – How I “Soled Out” 803 Ways Thanks to UBC Southern Medical Program and Kelowna General Hospital

Ho Ho Ho – it has bin one heel of a steel-toed journey with Soles4Souls Canada and the Kelowna Sunrise Rotary Shoe Bank.         On November 25 – we decked the halls and placed shoe-donation drop bins at four locations:  Kelowna General Hospital main entrance and Rose Avenue entrance; UBC Clinical Academic Campus, 2nd floor reception; and at UBC Okanagan Reichwald, centre reception.           A Christmas flyer had already been circulated electronically encouraging…

Read More Read More

An American in Kelowna – Totally Swamped at the Kelowna Community Food Bank

An American in Kelowna – Totally Swamped at the Kelowna Community Food Bank

Elaine was right. She had been advising me that Kelowna had a tight-knit business community where “everybody kinda knew everybody.” A few weeks after I arrived in town, I got wind of a week-long basketball camp taking place at a local high school. After communicating with the camp director, I found out a referee boot camp was simultaneously taking place. Music to my whistle-while-you-work ears. I needed to explore options and make connections. On a Wednesday night I slipped into…

Read More Read More

An American in Kelowna: Lots of Buzz at the Kelowna Community Food Bank

An American in Kelowna: Lots of Buzz at the Kelowna Community Food Bank

The Kelowna Community Food Bank is darn lucky to have its own version of BuzzFeed. No, it’s not some kind of copycat Internet news media company. This version is offline and goes by the name of Buzz Kline. Buzz is a true man-about-town harvester. I’d call him the MVP (Most Valuable Pickup-Artist). Five days a week, Monday thru Friday, the 63-year-old part-time employee drives the Food Bank donations truck around Kelowna, Glenmore, Rutland, and Mission for donated-food pickups. He starts…

Read More Read More