SUBMITTED BY SSI WOMEN’S INSTITUTE
February is Women’s Institute Month, and in honour of the birthday of our founder, Adelaide Hunter Hoodless, the Salt Spring Island Women’s Institute (also known as the “Pie Ladies”) is pleased to announce our annual 2023/2024 donations.
We are a group of only 24 members, but with the enthusiastic help of 14 community women, we were able to make and sell nearly 750 pies at the 2023 Fall Fair and Apple Festival. The wonderful support we get from the community when we sell our pies, plus donations from Salt Spring Island gardeners, farmers and grocery stores, helps keep our costs down so that we can give away more money.
This year, we are donating over $12,000 to local, provincial, national and international groups. We have made nearly 12,000 pies since 2001 and have given away over $10,000 in the past 10 years, an outstanding amount for a group that has historically had fewer than 20 members. We make all of our pies by hand and from scratch.
The Women’s Institute emphasizes donations to groups that help children and women, especially in agriculture and health care.
Donations for Children and
Youth on Salt Spring
• Santa’s Workshop: $300 to buy Christmas gifts for children in families who would not have enough money to buy them gifts.
• SSI Girl Guides: $200 to help with their programs and to thank them for washing the reusable plates at the Fall Fair.
• SSI Therapeutic Riding: $250 to support a program which helps many special needs children and adults, both physically and emotionally.
• GISS Bursary: $2,000 for a GISS graduating student who will be studying agriculture, environment or education.
• SSI 4H: $500 to pay for the membership fee for four children who might otherwise not be able to join.
Donations for Families
in Need on SSI
• Copper Kettle: $500 for a group that helps so many on a shoestring budget.
• SSI Food Bank: $500 for an important community service.
• SSI Transition House: $500 for start-up kits for families fleeing violence.
• Island Comfort Quilts: $200 to help make quilts for people from the SSI community undergoing medical treatments.
• Greenwoods Eldercare: $500 for small items for enrichment activities.
• Lady Minto Extended Care Kitchen: $200 for small items for use in the kitchen.
Donations to SSI Institutions
• Salt Spring Farmers’ Institute: $1,000 for the rental of the booth at the Fall Fair.
• Salt Spring Island Museum: $250 to help the museum with ongoing costs so that our island history is kept for the future.
• Fulford Community Hall: $1,000 for the upkeep of an important community asset which was originally built and paid for by the Salt Spring Island Women’s Institute.
Donations for B.C. Women’s and Children’s Health and Wellbeing
• B.C. Children’s Hospital: $500 for an institution of which the WI was a founder.