Category Archives: Community

Community

How the Cortes Community Island Foundation hit the ground running

Cortes Island’s little community foundation has turned to be a leader in terms of innovation. 

“Most community foundations have years and years of fundraising and millions of dollars of endowments behind them. They get to have their cake and eat it too,” explained Executive Director Manda Aufochs Gillespie.

“This idea that we’ve got – to just hit the ground running and figure out what the social profits on Cortes need and trying to help become a partner and getting that for them – turns out that’s really innovative in the community foundation world. It’s only the most up to date modern community foundations that are trying to figure that out.”

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Community, Development, Housing

Designing for Meaningful Human Connection on FolkU @89.5FM

What do our lives, spaces, and buildings look life if we were to prioritize connection? On Friday December 30, Bruce Haden joined host Manda Aufochs Gillespie to discuss his career as a designer, thought leader, and author focused on the power of spaces, organizations, and institutions to create powerful, transformation change through prioritizing the potential of human connection.

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Community

Ramona Boyle: Quadra ICAN’s new Coordinator

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Quadra ICAN recently hired Ramona Boyle as the Coordinator to oversee their operations. This was advertised as a part time position, which is expected to take approximately 40 hours a month. Cortes Currents asked the Heriot Bay resident about her new role.

“After I was interviewed for the job, I was told that the reason that I got it is because of my intense practicality.  I’m a problem solver and I get things done,” she explained. “When I first started working with ICAN about two years ago, some of the people came to my property here and they looked around at what I had built. I have goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, a huge garden and water collection system. All kinds of systems that didn’t exist before. The property was in quite rundown condition when we bought it. I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t have certain skills, but if I needed it, I learned it. So we had to build a barn. I learned how to build a barn and put a roof on it, learned how to do a water collection system and learned how to repair a flooded roof. I’m pretty practical.”

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Community, Family

Reflections on what 2022 meant for the Cortes DeathCaring Collective

Editor’s Note: Cortes Currents asked Margaret Verschuur, Lead Steward of the Cortes DeathCaring Collective, for her reflections on this past year and thoughts as we enter 2023. This is an edited transcript of what she said.

By Margaret Verschuur 

When you asked me about doing an interview, Roy, I hesitated. But then I thought of Jennifer Stevens, and her courage, and thought: I can do this. Jen was someone who really showed up in community, and she let the DeathCaring Collective be a part of her experience. 

Of course, confidentiality is something important in everything we do in the DeathCaring Collective, but Jennifer was always very open and her daughter Darshan has been generous and eloquent in sharing her experience with her mom and has given us permission to talk about Jen as well. 

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Community, Health

Gorge Hall hosts first New Years event during pandemic, fundraises for hall maintenance

By Louis Belcourt, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

Locals on Cortes are hosting an all ages New Years Eve event with live music and food at the Gorge Hall for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

All proceeds from the event will be donated to the Whaletown Community Club (WCC) for the maintenance of the Gorge Hall. The organization owns and manages the Gorge Hall, the Whaletown Cemetery, the Louisa Tucker Library, the Old Schoolhouse Gallery building, and leases Avery Park from the government. The funds will be managed by the WCC board, the WCC President, and the WCC treasurer Izabelle Perry.

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