By JEAN GELWICKS
I love living on Salt Spring. I feel very lucky to have spent the last 27 years on this beautiful island, with wonderful people who work together with respect, and humour to build a community that is accepting, engaged, vibrant and resilient.
Like on all islands, our volunteers are amazing. They are the life blood of Salt Spring. We have more volunteer organizations and clubs listed in our phone book than communities twice our size. They hold wildly successful events like our Fall Fair, the Pride Parade (third largest in BC), Ruckle Heritage Farm Day, festivals of ALL kinds — from the film festival to the Blossom Picnic and beyond — theatre productions, and really fine music (to name only a few) and they do these every year.
Volunteers work with others, including governmental entities: run our beautiful library, were responsible for the construction of ArtSpring and help to run it, put solar panels on the roof of the secondary school and with the energy cost savings give out scholarships to students, started our community’s transit system, take care of our community halls, and run all kinds of sports activities for kids. They have constructed kilometres of pedestrian pathways (open to everyone, 24 hours a day), the skateboard park, indoor tennis and squash facilities, our indoor pool and so much more.
These wonderful organizations of volunteers are also responsible for most seniors’ and low-cost housing on the island and they have protected thousands of acres of public green space. Every year we are growing more food, and we have an Area Farm Plan, an Agricultural Alliance and a Farmland Trust all because of volunteers. We have people keeping us safe doing Search and Rescue and firefighting and we have an exceptional neighbourhood emergency response (POD) program.
I am personally thankful for Lady Minto Hospital where the care is exceptional and patients are treated like family. Our thriving arts community helps define us. Our schools are great. We have hiking trails galore and everywhere you look it is just plain gorgeous.
I am not saying we can’t do better . . . but give me a break. Living on Salt Spring Island is pretty good, especially if you compare us with any other place our size. At this time in our history, let us remember, we have done all this under our current model of governance.
In our brilliance and with an attempt to govern ourselves even better, we have voted “yes” to the formation of a Local Community Commission and now we need to elect four very good people to both protect what is working well on our island and make our community even better.
This election is crucial. Please vote.
Yes to the volunteers and all their years of work.Everywhere I look I see traffic and parking lots filled with vehicles. And I hear all the NOISE from these vehicles as well as noise of lawnmowers, weed eaters and leaf blowers.