Tag Archives: Marc Doll

Health

Raising $50,000 to help find a doctor for Quadra Island

After serving at the Quadra Island Medical Clinic for eight years, Dr Steve Hughes will soon be retiring. That puts the island in a difficult spot and inn this morning’s interview Marc Doll, Chair of the Quadra Island Foundation, explains how his organization and the clinic have teamed and raised more than $50,000 towards finding Hughes replacement.  

Marc Doll: “Dr. Hughes, who I believe is the doctor for several people on Cortes as well, is retiring. He’s stretched out his retirement as far as he can. Come September, he will be doing the official retirement, which puts that clinic, which is anchored by a doctor, in a stressful position.” 

“The Quadra Island Health Society, which was formed last time a doctor left that clinic, has been searching for a doctor for some time now, and it’s been a rough rough ride. It’s hard to find doctors willing to come to specialized clinics in rural settings. So they decided, as a board, to reach out to a professional healthcare recruiter. That comes with a pretty hefty price tag, at least from my perspective, and the decision was to go to the community to find the funds to hire a recruiter to bring a doctor, to the island to keep that clinic open.” 

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Community

What does the community want from the Quadra Community Centre and the new Blenkin Park Pavilion?

The Quadra Island Recreation Society is asking the community for their input into what the Quadra Community Centre and a new pavilion at Blenkin Park should be used for.

Marc Doll, Vice Chair of the Society, explained: “We started by looking at one desperate need for the community centre, which was the lack of a proper kitchen facility. We came up with some solutions, but the price tag came in higher than what we wanted for a very small improvement. So, conversations continued, and we decided that we really had to look at the bigger picture. The Quadra Island Community Centre has been serving the community since 1985, and we felt it was time to go back to the public and ask: what do we need this building to do for the next 20 years?”

“At the same time, we’ve been working with the SRD for the last number of years to get an outdoor pavilion in Blenkin Park. The funding is in place, and we’re looking to start building as early as 2026.”

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Community

Expanding Funding Opportunities for the Quadra Island Foundation

Over the past few years, the Quadra Island Foundation has channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local economy. Now, thanks to a change in their charitable status, they may be able to do a great deal more.

Marc Doll, Vice President in Charge of Communications, explained:

“We have had charitable status since our inception. The change is in the scope of that status. Previously, we were only able to work with charities within a very, very defined set of parameters. Our charitable purposes really limited us to only working with established charities on the island. We couldn’t work with individuals or societies. It handcuffed us, so even when we gave out our small neighborhood grants, we had to work with the Rec Society because we didn’t actually have the ability to funnel that money directly to people who were not registered charities.”

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Community, Development

This Week: 2025 Rural Islands Economic Partnership Virtual Forum

The 2025 Rural Islands Economic Partnership (RIEP) Virtual Forum is coming up on Thursday, March 6 and Friday, March 7. Two of the organizers, Francine Carlin and Kate Maddigan are my guests today.

“ It’s going to be a jam packed two half days, 9:15 AM to 12:30 PM.  Our virtual events are really unique because we all live on islands or remote coastal communities and don’t have the opportunity to get together as a collaborative regional grouping. So it’s important to have these virtual events that bring together people from all across the coast and the islands, up from North Island as far as Alert Bay, to Sooke and beyond. So we have a pretty broad reach and this year it’s really important, particularly with the events in the world around economic  issues that relate to  our local  economic and social wellbeing,” explained Francine Carlin, Chair of the Rural Islands Economic Partnership. 

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Food Security

Food Nutrition, Prices And Security: Local And International  Perspectives

Around the time President Donald Trump started threatening to start a trade war, Cortes Currents reached out to Dr Kushank Bajaj from UBC’s Institute for Resource, Environment and Sustainability and Marc Doll, from Foot Forward Forest Farm on Quadra Island. 

The topic was food security and Dr Bajaj is one of the developers of a website called Canada Food Flows, which traces the amount of fruits and vegetables coming into British Columbia from other provinces and nations. 

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