Naomi Race, a Victoria mother of two boys, faces two financial bumps every year, back-to-school and Christmas. And the biggest is back-to-school.
“That’s the hardest, September,” said Race, 40, who relies on disability benefits and lives with her husband, also receiving disability benefits.
“The boys go back to school and you have to meet their needs for that and get them new clothes and new shoes and all that other stuff,” she said.
So on Aug. 19, Race will return for the third year in a row to the Mustard Seed Church and Food Bank, for school supplies to outfit her two boys, now seven and 11. It’s a program called Fair Start, and it gives families, a boost for the opening days of school with books, paper, pens, pencils, and, if they’re lucky this year, a new backpack.
Jackie Cox-Ziegler, Mustard Seed director of administration, said this year Fair Start could really use about 300 new backpacks to give out. Also, scientific calculators, suitable for high school, would be hugely appreciated.
Cox-Ziegler said Fair Start, was started 17 years ago and has grown steadily, from serving about 30 families to the present 500-odd.
She said the Mustard Seed works with schools, all of whom present their list of supplies needed to make up the September kits.
The Mustard Seed spends about $70 per kit. But that price is the result of assistance from Monk Office Supply. The equivalent retail cost would be well over $100.
Cox-Ziegler said summer can be especially hard time for families because costs increase,
She said many families rely on school meal programs to see their kids get one square per day. Also, if parents are working, summer means extra costs for day care, activities, camps or baby sitters.
Then, at the end of more than two months of these summertime extra costs, comes the back-to-school whammy.
“They don’t have the dollars to make ends meet when it comes to things like paper, books, pencil crayons, or back packs,” said Cox-Ziegler.
She said one of the Mustard Seed’s volunteers recently told her his first trip to the church and food bank was for the Fair Start program.
This man said his mom had been single while raising him and she mostly managed to make ends meet.
“But she never had any extra,” said Cox-Ziegler. “So, to suddenly get hit up for school supplies at the end of the summer, she just couldn’t make it.”
“So that was the first time he remembers coming to the Mustard Seed,” she said. “Now he has come back to help out volunteering, a parent himself now.”
Fair Start is on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the Mustard Seed Church and Food Bank, 625 Queens Ave., from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Children’s ID must be presented to collect a school kit.
For more information about Fair Start, the Mustard Seed or how to help, call 250-953-1575, extension 111. Or, go online to mustardseed.ca.
Fundraiser dance to aid Mexican kids
Connie Harris and her husband, Tom Shandel, love their vacations in Mexico and are now hoping their affection can help out some of the Mexican people.
Harris is an organizer of the fundraiser Dance for the Children, a Mexican dance party on Saturday, Aug. 16, at the Les Passmore Seniors Centre, near Tillicum Mall.
Money raised will go to a relief project in southwest Mexico set up to assist migrant indigenous farm workers and their families. The project offers 16 cabins, showers and medical services. There is even a small school to help the children improve their Spanish, since most speak Mixteco, their native language.
Harris and her husband have spent three vacations in Melaque, about 300 kilometres south of Puerto Vallarta and grown to love the area.
“It’s actually beautiful agricultural country, growing tomatoes, strawberries, coconuts, and all those wonderful things we import up here,” said Harris, who lives in Cowichan Bay but works in Victoria.
Last winter she met Dr. Rosa Vivas Lapointe, who first got the relief project up and running. Harris on also discovered a local connection since Vivas Lapointe spends her summers in Victoria with her tennis-pro husband, Canadian John Lapointe.
Dance for the Children will be on Saturday, Aug. 16, at the Les Passmore Seniors Centre, 286 Hampton Rd. Tickets are $15 for one, $25 for a couple.
Doors open at 7 p.m. and fun begins at 7:15 with a lesson in salsa dancing for the beginners. Full dancing begins at 8 p.m. and continues until 10:30 p.m. A silent auction will also be held.
Sketches reveal Canucks’ love of country
A Victoria woman, now living in Montreal, returned home with her boyfriend Friday to complete a pan-Canada artistic effort.
Rebecca Jones, 24, and her partner, Aquil Virani, 23, are travelling the breadth of Canada asking passers-by to draw what being Canadian means to them. The end result will be incorporated into a collage-style mural called “Canada’s Self Portrait.”
“We have people sketching stick figures, coastlines, mountains, sailboats, anything that sumps for them what being Canadian means,” said Jones, in a telephone interview on Thursday when she and Virani arrived in Victoria.
Jones said she is originally from Victoria and Virani, Vancouver, but the two have been living in Montreal to study at McGill, Now both graduated they are still there, she working for a nonprofit and he as a visual artist.
The couple have planned the work as a large mural, and started in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on July 20. They moved on to Halifax, and boarded a train to make it across the country.
The couple, still have to hit Ottawa and Quebec City but that’s planned for the return trip to gather more sketches.
“It’s going to be a very large, mural painting,” said Jones. “The idea is for everyone to contribute to the painting which is why we are calling it Canada’s Self Portrait.”
Signs of the times in Falaise neighbourhood
Saanich’s smallest community, the Falaise neighbourhood with 192 homes, has a big story to celebrate on Saturday.
The community association is planning a family afternoon of hot dogs, games and a performance by the Naden Band to commemorate the unveiling of two interpretive signs in Falaise Park.
Franca LaBella, president of Falaise Community Association, said her neighbourhood was actually named after the Battle of the Falaise Gap, Aug. 12-21, 1942. It was the decisive engagement of the Normandy campaign and Canadian soldiers played a key role.
Also, the Falaise community was later established after the Second World War by returning veterans. These men were offered land and grants. A total of 32 veterans took advantage.
And one surviving Falaise veteran even settled in the community, said LaBella.
“All this is something that seems to be forgotten but we want it to be remembered,” said LaBella.
The Falaise Community bash is on Saturday, Aug. 16, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., in Falaise Park on Falaise Crescent, close to the Broadmead Village Shopping Centre.
Student wins scholarship for salmon studies
An Esquimalt High School student has won a $3,000 summer scholarship to research juvenile chinook salmon.
Amanda Noel was one of 27 high school students from across Canada and the U.S. chosen to participate in the American 2014 Hutton Junior Fisheries Biology Program.
A goal of the Hutton Scholarship is to stimulate interest in fisheries among groups of people who are under-represented in the field, like women and some minorities.
Noel is set to work with members of the Biology Department at the University of Victoria.
Presentation tackles bipolar youth issues
A packed house is expected Monday for a talk and movie to be presented by medical researchers and advocates for young people with bipolar disorder.
The Bipolar Youth Action Project, a research effort by young people to explore living well while dealing with bipolar disorder, is hosting the evening at the Eric Martin Pavilion.
Speaking will be Andrea Paquette, of the Bipolar Disorder Society of B.C.’s Bipolar Babe Project, and Prof. Erin Michalak, of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of B.C.
Afterward the popular documentary movie Of Two Minds will be shown.
The evening is on Monday, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the E.M.I., next to the Royal Jubilee Hospital. Admission is by donation.