Sharing experiences

Can there be a more caring, giving and generous place than Prince Edward County? Each week we could fill our pages with the images and stories of ordinary and extraordinary folks—working, sharing and helping to make their community a better place.

In this job I am fortunate to see a great deal of this selfless generosity, energy and hard work firsthand and up close.

When I witness the enormous bear hug of generosity that is expressed here I am reminded of the fable of the boy and an older man who, when walking along a beach, come across thousands of stranded starfish. As the sun gets higher they will all soon perish. Methodically the boy picks up one star fish and places it in the water. Then another. Then another. The old man shakes his head. “There are too many son. There are miles of beach and doomed starfish as far as the eye can see. You can’t possibly make a difference?” The boy looks back toward the old man with a starfish in his hand: “It makes a difference to this one.”

At the risk of slipping into Pollyannaish delusion, it is illuminating, I think, to look back on the breadth and scale of human generosity shown here in just the past week. Wilf Durham and the Wellington Lions Club were recognized for planting trees. The Lions you should know, like many of us, are getting on in years. They would dearly welcome some younger participation—and they will come—but for now it is mostly folks who have retired and want to give back to their community. But planting trees—carving into the tough sod and nestling hundreds of seedlings into unforgiving soil—is hard work for the youngest of backs. Yet these folks set this goal, assembled the volunteer labour and set to work. This week they were justly honoured.

This week too saw Paul Greer’s heavy equipment and trucks hauling loads of crushed stone from Essroc to resurface the Millennium Trail from Belleville Road in Wellington west to Conley Road. The trail renovation project has been undertaken by the Wellington Rotary Club for the simple, yet vital, purpose of improving access and use of this community parkland. Soon a long stretch of trail from northwest of Wellington to Highline Mushroom Farms may be easily navigated by foot, cycle or stroller. As they have done on the beach in Wellington, the Rotary Club is working to ensure that every resident can feel with their own senses the richness of the natural beauty that is abundant in Prince Edward County.

Halfway around the world, Peta Hall is using County funds and resources in Ghana to see that young men and women in that desperate part of the world have a fighting chance for success and achievement.

And Thursday was National Philanthropic Day. To signify the occassion the County Community Foundation assembled a group of friends and donors for a tour of the community— specifically to visit organizations the Foundation had served in one way or another. The tour began at Reaching For Rainbows, a program designed to assist girls develop and enhance key life skills. At the Bloomfield Centre for Creativity the group learned about the volunteer community effort to convert the former industrial building into a bustling beehive in which young and old are encouraged to come and express their creativity. In Wellington the Foundation tour visited the Storehouse Foodbank, seeing firsthand the logistics and resources managed by about 20 volunteers who work to keep this vital community service running smoothly. The tour ended in Ameliasburgh, where an energetic group of volunteers has worked to make the town hall accessible, renovating and modernizing the hall facilities.

The County Community Foundation is a funding partner to each of these volunteer efforts and is particularly well-suited to provide advice, expertise and back office support for a wide variety of small community-based projects and programs.

On Saturday night, black ties and glittering gowns assembled in the sumptuously adorned Highline Hall signalled an extra gear in the County generosity machine. By the time the night was done more than $85,000 had been raised to fund in part the purchase of a home in Picton, which will be transformed into this community’s first residential hospice.

By engaging in a listing of gracious acts in the County I am surely overlooking some important contributions and expressions of giving that occurred over the past week. For this I am sorry. The truth is that there aren’t enough pages to document the generosity, the depth of caring and the selfless giving that we witness each week all around us.

We live in a truly special time and place.

It is humbling.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca