Nuanced. - 19. Sue Knott: City Councillor & Cancer Survivor

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Sue Knott is a mother, wife, traveller, Chilliwack City Councillor, cancer survivor, Executive Director of Chilliwack Hospice Society and a pillar in the Chilliwack community.Sue Knott has 40 years of solid business experience. She started her career with BC Telephone Company and retired as a Senior Manager in 2004. She went on to run the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce as CEO for several years. In 2008, Sue was elected to Chilliwack City Council and continues in that position currently. Sue Knott has been extremely involved in our community and has volunteered on. dozens of Boards including Fraser Valley Health Care Foundation, Chilliwack Cultural Centre Society, and the Chilliwack Agricultural Commission. She is a past President of the Chilliwack Mt Cheam Rotary Club. Sue has two beautiful daughters Melody Atrill and Haley Wakefield. She is married to her best friend Norm Knott and has embraced a huge extended family. In her spare time Sue enjoys artistic endeavors of all kinds, cooking for friends and family and travelling the world. Sue is thrilled to be part of the community in Chilliwack, the most beautiful place on earth.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Sue Knot, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on. Can you please give us a brief introduction? Okay. Thank you and thank you for having me on that. This is going to be lots of fun, I think. Yes. A brief introduction. Well, I am 58 years old.

I have two beautiful grown children. I was born and raised in Vancouver, actually. I was not born in children. But my grandparents lived out here and my uncle Jack Dowding was a teacher at CCS back in the day. And somehow when I was at the point where I was divorcing and I needed to find a place to live, I decided that I would come to Chilliwack because I knew Chilowack really well. And I had done a lot of visiting of my grandparents here. They lived on Davis in Sardis Park.

and I, when they got to be in their 80s, I would come and help them and cook and, you know, clean their house a little bit after work. So, uh, that's kind of how I ended up in Chilweck is, uh, is just out of, uh, knowing the area and thinking how beautiful it was. And if I was going to be on my own, what a better place to raise kids. So that's how I ended up here. Okay. Uh, I, uh, I was a horrible student when I was growing up, hated school. I think, uh, you know, it became really apparent to my parents even when I was in kindergarten because, you know, any excuse not to go to school, I had all these problems, you know, oh, I'm not feeling well or whatever. And, you know, my trajectory back in the day was not, you know, bright because I just

really and truly hated having to go to school. And at one point, I convinced the teacher and my parents and the specialists and the school nurse that I was totally deaf in both ears. And they were, you know, making plans for me. And it was great because I got to stay home for a while and trying to figure it out. And then at one point, with my back face to them, they offered me a creamsicle. And I turned around and said, oh, yes. So I was a very precocious and manipulative kind of child. And really just wanted to stay at home and do art projects and things with my mom. And so that's how I started off. I lived at 25th in Arbutus in Vancouver, and I went to elementary school at Trafalgar and went to Prince of Wells High School. I was kind of an outcast kind of a kid, I have to say.

You know, from a very young age, I started to get, you know, heavier and heavier and heavier. And when I was in high school, I was incredibly bullied. And I think that's one of the reasons that I have chosen to try and protect people and go into areas. where I could support people that are vulnerable, right? So, you know, every day on the way home from school, the boys, well, there wasn't just boys, it was boys and girls. They used to shove me into this prickle bush. And, you know, I would go home and complain to my mom and say, oh, my, you know, this is the

worst. Like, they're just constantly bullying me and picking on me. Can't we do something about it or won't you go and talk to the parents or whatever? And my mom was very loving in many ways, but she really didn't like people. who weren't perfectly stick skinny and appeared to have it all together. And, you know, she was a fabulous dresser. And she was just one of these people that was really concerned with appearances. So she would just say, no, you know, if you want to do something about it, lose weight.

And, yeah, it was bad. So, but in many other ways, she was very loving and wonderful. But she just had this one little issue where appearances were basically everything. So, went through school, and I think my parents probably would have said the biggest accomplishment that I achieved at that point. My life was the fact that I actually graduated. But I graduated with, I think, a B plus average because I took all my kind of core courses and things you absolutely had to take. I took general business math instead of, you know, the really hard math. And then I had nothing but art courses.

And I got A's and A pluses in art. So it really brought my average up. And I did eventually graduate from high school in Vancouver. It was tough for my parents because my dad has a master's in physics and mathematics. Wow. He's a really, really smart guy and very dry, you know. And then my mother was this crazy kind of art teacher, very gregarious, outgoing. She loved to have parties.

I mean, every weekend at our house, there was the bridge party or the this party or the that party. And so, you know, it was kind of an odd balance between the two of them. But anyways, at that point, here I am. I have worked probably almost full time through high school. I worked in a – my first job was doing telephone surveys for cigarettes and chewing gum and all this kind of stuff. And it was above – I think the only reason I took the job is because it was above a – Purdy's at Gramble and Broadway. I just love Purdy's, right? So anyways, did that job for, I think, about a year and a half. And then I worked in a retirement home that was right across

the street from our school. So I worked for probably four or five nights a week and one day on the weekend. So I had already worked full time, probably, you know, all through school. Because, you know, I didn't do a lot of homework, let's face it, right? It wasn't really my thing. So I always had lots of time for a job. And I wanted to take the summer off. And we had talked about going to Emily Carr. And I had got a small bursary from an artist that came to the school. Her name was Evelyn Roth. And she was doing banners for Year of the Child. And my banner was selected for our art class, right? So then we had to make them and all this kind of stuff. And with it came this small nursery and kind of a recommendation for Emily Carr. So I said, oh yeah, I'm going to go to Emily

car and I wanted to take the summer off and my mom was just driving me nuts you know you've got to go if you're not going to go to university you've got to you've got to go find a job and uh because they didn't really think of emily car as like a future thing you know that's all all fun fun in games but it'll never pay your way so anyways i went and applied at bc tell uh my uncle jack was there he gave me a recommendation and i just absolutely did not want that job like i i went and sweat pants and a sweatshirt shirt. I don't think I had any makeup on. I maybe brushed my hair and went in there I had like the worst attitude. And the person who interviewed me, um, you know, was very nice. And, you know, and I, I have trouble being a mean person. So I couldn't really get, like, I was still

friendly, right? And I thought, oh, there's no way they're going to give me this job. Well, that was a Thursday. I got a call on Friday to say that I had been hired. And I was starting on the Monday. And I was so choked, and I thought, how desperate are these people that they would hire me with such a horrible, horrible attitude? So, you know, I told myself, okay, this is for the summer. That's it. I'm only doing this for the summer. And I was, you know, 18 and, you know, had my whole life ahead of me and all these other plans. And, you know, being a telephone operator is, it's really tough work. I have to say, Our headsets were so short that you couldn't stand up. And the woman, I can't remember what her name was,

but she was just a battle axe. She was so mean, and she would come and smack the back of your chair if you weren't sitting up straight and stuff. And, you know, it was back in the day where there wasn't a lot of, you know, this is back in 1980. And there wasn't. No work safe, B.C. Well, work safe might have been there.

But, you know, they were, these women had been around since the beginning of cordboards. I did do a bit of training on cordboards, but they had moved to this new system or whatever. But anyway, so I thought, you know, I'll never last. But, you know, 25 years later, I was still working for the telephone company. It was, at that point, it was BC, I worked for BC Telemobility. I was a senior manager reporting to the vice president and the president of the company. It was an emerging business, and it was an amazing time to be, in wireless. Like, I had the first bag phone, and, you know, my parents each had, I had

phones installed in their cars, and it was all this really, you know, and all their friends thought they were like the coolest because nobody really had anything like that. And, you know, the phones themselves were like $4,000 or something at that point back in the day. Oh, my gosh. And throughout my career there, you know, I had the first Star Tech, the first flip phone the first this and then we got this thing that was like uh it was like uh i can't remember what it was called but it had it was basically like the beginning of blackberry but it was something else and it had this big chunky kind of modemy thing on the back of it and it could you know send and receive messages and and there was some email and stuff like that and

And we just thought, this will never work. Like the wireless world will never accept us, first of all. It's too expensive. It's not reliable enough. But anyways, we were wrong. I think the guys who developed Blackberry actually came and did a presentation in our boardroom. And all of us as senior managers, you know, they left the room and we said, these guys are going to go broke.

There's no way this is going to work. And, you know, the wireless world is just not robust enough to support this. And anyway, over time, things got better. But, you know, this was back in about 2004 or 2005. And I decided that I would retire. And so, yeah, with 25, well, they were offering really great packages. And I just absolutely couldn't, you know, at this point, I was living in Chilliwack and commuting every day. And I decided that I would go.

So, you know, after 25 years of being a. telephone person, you know, who am I now? In the meantime, I had, just to go back a bit, I had the opportunity when I worked for the telephone company. When I left there, I think I had 12 weeks of holidays. And, you know, year after year, you get, you know, more and more holidays. Plus, I did a lot of overtime. I did, I had two jobs always before I was married. I cooked lobsters for catering company. I was a hand model for Burke's, print ads. And I did things like, well, I worked in a pub. I worked at the Rosenthorne Pub for five years.

So I would go out the back door of the telephone company, and the pub was on the other side of the alley and in the back door of the pub and worked till closing in there. So I lived on my tips. I paid my rent in an apartment on the water in the West End, right of the entrance to Stanley Park, which is amazing. and I, you know, basically all the money that I made at the telephone company, I saved up for periods of time and all my overtime was time off because I didn't take the money for it. So every year I would take like three months and travel around the world or every other year, maybe every 18 months.

So I've been to, I would spend three months in Greece, three months in Europe. I've been to Costa Rica, not for not that long. Can we slow down? because I think that these are stories that we're kind of missing out on right now is these experiences of traveling. And I think this would be so valuable because a lot of people say they want to go to Greece, but they don't know what they would do when they get there.

So being able to get a little bit of those stories would be so cool. Okay, well, let's talk about Greece, actually. Because Greece was very pivotal in my life. So spent three months in Greece, and, you know, basically you arrive in Athens, which is really gross. It's a beautiful, beautiful city, but, you know, you cannot even see across the street. It's so smoggy. Wow.

And, you know, they're only allowed to have certain amount of taxi cabs in the downtown core. And coming from a place like Vancouver where I lived on the water, and it was beautiful and sunny, and you just think climate change and pollution and all those things at that point in time never even entered my mind. And then you go to Greece. And, you know, you arrive, and as the plane is landing, you think, you know, are we going to go into the side of a mountain? Because you can hardly even see a thing. It's so disgusting, the air there. And it may be better now.

You know, I have to give them some credit. It may have improved, but at the time it was awful. So what do you do? I was with, on that particular trip, I was with a girlfriend and a backpack. And, you know, I also did some traveling on my own. which when I think about it now, I would never let my daughters do that, although, you know, they're pretty strong-willed, both of them. They'll do whatever they want, but, you know, it was crazy dangerous. But anyways, okay, so you land in Athens, and you decide what you want to do. And there's,

I think it's called Piraeus Harbor. You know, you've got to remember, this is a long time ago. There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, but you decide, you know, kind of which island you want to go to, and there's like a map of all the different islands. So basically, for the entire time. I went from island to island to island to island and, you know, just experience things. The first island we went to was called Skiathos. It was a really northern island and we chose it because it was not very touristy. And we thought we want to kind of find a place. So you just get on the ferry and then when you get to the harbor, there's all these people with signs, pensions and all these things. So many, the culture in the Greek islands is to have

a lot of these places in their homes. So if you're a kid or a 20-something and you're thinking about traveling there, I wouldn't book a thing. Like, we never booked a thing. We just had a backpack with everything we needed in it. And we, you know, went to the harbor and we looked at the people and we thought, okay, that guy doesn't look like he's going to hack us up with an axe. So, we'll go with him. And, you know, they would take you off and walk you to their place, and they would show you to have this room. And, you know, some of them had these wide open bathrooms

with a bunch of shower heads, which was the communal shower. Not always what you were, especially as a woman, you were probably thinking, I don't know whether I want to stay here. But there was always 10 other people were saying, come see my place, come see my place. So that's how we did it. We just went from place to place, and we'd stay. You know, we found a place that we really liked.

Skiathos was beautiful. And it's funny because I have always been one of those people. Because I had such a weight problem when I was young and a lot of bullying and kind of self-esteem issues, I thought I will never go topless. And, you know, all over Europe, they go topless. And this was sort of our first experience of having it all around us. So I was there with my girlfriend, Julie, and we're lying on the beach. And everyone around us is topless.

And she said to me, I feel really stupid because we're not, like, topless. And I said, well, I'm not taking my top off. And at this point, I had lost about 100 pounds. So I went from being about 220 in high school. And the first year I moved out, I lost 100 pounds. So I was about 120. So, you know, it wasn't that I didn't look okay. I actually pretty, I looked pretty hot in the day.

But at that point. But I was just like, really? No way, am I going to do this? So anyways, she rolls over and sends. well, you know, we can't sit here all this, light of here all this time in the sun and all these people have their tops off. So anyways, we both said to each other,

okay, I'll do it, but don't look at me. Because it was such a bizarre, uncomfortable thing as North Americans. I mean, we just weren't raised that way. And there would be guys walking up and down the beach selling stuff, and they don't, they totally look you in the eye. You can tell, as a woman, or as any person,

what someone's looking at when they're talking to you, right? And they, it was like you didn't even have Mamory Glance. I mean, it was just totally. And yeah, and so after that, by the time we left, we were playing volleyball and all sorts of things, topless. And I came back with the best tan I think I've ever had. But anyways, back to the story of moving around the island. So, you know, you just go from one harbor to the next.

Micanos, we went Skiathos, Peros, Eos, Micanos. We hooked up with a bunch of American 20-somethings, and they had rented a sailboat. We spent, I think, a week or two weeks on this sailboat, sailing around all these different areas. What a great adventure. And I think probably with all the traveling that I've done, I've gone to a lot of countries that have been depressed or their air conditions are, you know, this condition of their air and their watershed and everything is so terrible. In the Greek islands, they pump the sewage straight into the ocean. No way. Yeah.

It's, I mean, and you're out there swimming around, and there's, like, toilet paper floating around. But because it's so wide open, the ocean takes it away. But that doesn't make it right. And, you know, I don't know whether they still do that, but I can remember thinking how disgusting. And, you know, bathroom facilities. Anyway, so probably the thing that I learned the most from doing all that was we're so lucky here in Canada. Like, it's amazing the life that we have. And, you know, that our human rights are protected. And we are in a, I mean, there's lots of, we've got lots of

room to make it better. But when you go up to other countries and you see people, like South Africa, for example, I spent three months in South Africa and we were staying, this is when I was first married, my ex-husband, who I met in. Eos in the Greek Islands. He was South African. He was a rugby player and he had been traveling all over the world. So we got married and then when I was on my mat leave, we went for three months to South Africa. And in South Africa, it was right at the end of apartheid. So DeClerc was still in power, but they were doing the transition over. and the black community there or, you know, anyone of color, like they all had licenses or identity cards that said what degree of color they were.

So if you were a cape colored or you were full black or, you know, if you had an injection of this particular white guy in your history or whatever, they all had kind of a number on there as to who they were and where they kind of ranked. in the scheme of things, it was horrifying. And there was this guy that came, and he lived in the garden shed on the property where we were staying. And nicest, nicest guy.

And, you know, but it would never look you in the eye because, you know, he would always have his head down, right? And he'd help us with groceries and stuff. And, you know, I would always tip him and, you know, thank him and talk to him and stuff. And my mother-in-law, who lived in South Africa, brought a box of my husband's old clothes. And he had been married for a while.

So he was a little bigger than his clothes were when he had left South Africa, which is many years before that. So I took the box of clothes and I gave them to the guy. And I said, my husband can't wear these. Would you like these things? And to him, it was like every Christmas rolled into one because he was making, you know, maybe five bucks. a day to do this job and living in a garden shed with no bathroom.

And when my mother-in-law saw him wearing this shirt, she tried to rip it off of him. How dare you? And, you know, basically took the box away. Wow. And that was the attitude in the day. So, I guess back to the things that I've learned from all this travel is how lucky we are and how we need to defend these rights and freedoms and, and look after the vulnerable with every fiber of our being.

Because, you know, you just look at what's going on in the States right now, and I don't want to get into that too much. But, you know, we are so lucky to live in Canada. And, you know, sometimes I see our society sort of slipping into this, them and us, you know, instead of embracing our differences and learning from each other and kind of growing as a community in a country. People are sometimes afraid of things that are different from them or their beliefs don't allow it. I would fight till my last breath to make sure that we continue to be a free

society where everyone is embraced. I think that that's so important, and I completely agree with you. It's almost like in our society right now, we agree on so much, like 80% of things that the only thing that interests us now is the 20% in which we disagree and we get to go back and forth on Facebook over something rather than recognizing we're all pretty much on the same page and I think social media skews our feelings about what other people are valuing and that disconnects us and makes us feel like well I could never be on the same page as this person who said this

and usually there's so much more we probably eat at the same places we probably enjoy the same snacks going to the same types of lakes Like, we have so much in common, but that's not what we focus on. No. So what was it like to come to Chilliwack after all of those experiences and kind of switch over? Because everybody kind of knows that Vancouver people are a bit different. They're more energetic. It's a more entertaining community where we are much more calm.

There's, like, we enjoy the quiet. So what was that adaptation like? Well, it's so funny because I can remember my friends of many, many years. you're moving to Chilawak, are you out of your mind? You will go crazy there. And I was very quick to defend the fact that Chiluac is a lot more than people give it credit for. They, you know, when I lived in Vancouver, I was very involved in the gay community in the West End. I did, that was another one of my jobs. I did a lot of sewing for gay balls and things like that because there was, you know, they couldn't just go off the rack. And especially my one,

one friend, Ian, who was this most gigantic guy. He looked less like a woman than anyone I could possibly imagine. So it was very creative. But, you know, I can remember having a conversation with them and I'm saying, okay, I'm, you know, I'm moving to Gillowack. And I'm going to, I'm going to bring my kids up there. It's going to be great. And they said, you'll go crazy. And I said, you know what? No, I won't. Because people are people, no matter where you go. And there are, when you look at the society, there are the same percentages of people who like to have fun. it's just a smaller pool, that's all. You know, Chilweck is not all that different from Vancouver.

I would say probably since I've been on council, I look at the, you know, we have now the cultural center, we have this, we have that, we have smaller versions of really everything else. And, you know, that's always been one of my things, particularly with public art, is to try and bring into our community the things that might be missing to make it good.

for everyone. Because all the people who love those things are here. They're here in the same percentages as they are in the city, in my belief. And the thing that we have that they don't have is we have the mountains and the lake and the ability to, you know, all the trails. And, you know, I'm not an athletic person. I don't use really any of those things. But I love to look at them. You know, I love to, you know, look around and think, wow, what a beautiful place we live. And I'll tell you a story. When I was living, I lived in Richmond for a period of time when I was first married. And one of the things that really made me decide that I needed to get out of the city was I was cleaning my yard.

I had my side gates out open and I had my two little kids there and I had just recently separated. And this car drove by and they threw a beer bottle at me, which narrowly missed my head. And I was just like, Yahoo kids. They thought it was really funny, whatever. And I thought, you know what? this is not where I want to raise my kids. I want to raise my kids in a place where they can ride their bikes. And I think that's something that we have more up here in Chilliwack than they do in Vancouver. You know, neighborhoods are safer. And, you know, as we grow, unfortunately, we lose a little bit of that all the time. Does that answer your question? Yes, very much so. And I think that that's so valuable because you are supporting the arts here in Chilliwack. And I think that we don't always do a good job of explaining why the arts are so important. Because a lot of people, they know arts important.

Like, even when I was growing up, people would value the arts. And I'd be like, I don't understand. Like, it's just a painting. But there's a story behind that. And once we start to understand what people were trying to grapple with, understand, and develop how long it takes for them to develop those skills, you have a lot more humility towards it. And David was a previous guest, and he was explaining how he views the world and how intricate, it the details can be in the different colors and for a lot of people we don't even notice those

things we don't think about it we're just about the next movie coming out the next the next Netflix show and we don't take time to notice the details that artists are willing to take the time and show you because i've had people see art and go well that's just like a stool by a barn like what is that and it's like but that's telling us like that's where we're from and that's taking something that we don't even pay attention to and we kind of skip and giving it the time that it deserves And I liked this analogy that children kind of remind us of that. And they'll slow down and they'll point out the stool and they'll be like, I don't under. And they'll play with it and you'll be like, that's so much fun.

And this kid's having so much fun with a box. And we're looking at it as just a box, but it's so much more depending on your perspective. And I think having you on to be able to share how Chilawak has developed its art and the value and the details in behind it, how the cultural center came about is so valuable for us to understand this pillar in our community. Yeah, you know, I sort of like to look at, you look at a group of kids, and there's a bunch of kids that really love sports. There's a bunch of kids that are involved in ballet or in this, that, and the other thing. But I think in a lot of cases, the kid that gravitates towards drawing and painting and creating visual arts, there's not as much for them. And it's not as celebrated. You know, you look around and, you know, you've got this sports team and that sports team,

and I think one of my priorities in dealing with the public art committee and anything to do with the arts in Chilliwack is to bring that piece for those kids. So those kids don't feel disenfranchised. They, you know, the artsy kids are always the geeky loser kids. You know, I don't believe that. But, you know, the perception quite often is, well, that kid can't play sports, so they're trying to put them into the arts, right? well, that's not fair, that's not right. We all have our own individual gifts to bring. And I think in a community that is growing and thriving,

you need to celebrate all of the aspects of it. So we have amazing sports fields. We have amazing trails. Now we have the cultural center where people can go and see the performing arts. And if you're a young girl or a young boy who's into dance or theater, Or I look at the Simpson kids, Jackie Simpson and Scott Simpson.

Their kids were always into the arts and performing arts and incredibly talented. And if that cultural center had not been there, there wouldn't have been that avenue for them to excel. Like one of their sons now is a, you know, a recognized artist that's, you know, I think he's selling a lot of his works. and the daughter, I'm not sure where she's working down, I'm sorry I've forgotten her name, but they're both pursuing that, those abilities. And unless you have a community that offers all of those things, then the people in our community that would excel

and find a life that is just so amazingly fulfilling would never have those opportunities as kids at the time when they are sort of figuring out what they want to do. You know, I mean, the arts has always been a huge part of my life. Even though I didn't pursue it, I decided that I like to make the yummy money at the telephone company and have a life that was solid and whatever. I always had other things that I pursued.

And living in Vancouver, it did give me that opportunity. So I'm glad that we have that now here. And I think it's growing all the time. There always needs to be opportunities for every second. of society. I completely agree. And for things like the Chilliwack mural festival and the art that was put up, it reminds us of this story that we have underlying our community that's so important. And it can, once you see the murals, you're like, oh, this is amazing. Who is this person? Why was it done? And then it pulls you in and it reminds you of the value of the cultural

center where some people go, well, what's practical about like drawing a picture? What a waste of money. Yeah. When a waste of money, putting all that money into a cultural center. You know, there's only a certain percentage of the population that uses it. Well, there's only a certain percentage of the population that uses the sports fields. Yeah. You know, but anyways, going back, yeah, I agree. And going back to the mural festival and any other kind of public art. First of all, I have to say huge kudos to Amber and also, you know,

all the other initiatives that we have taken to bring murals in public art. And, you know, we did the Canada 150 thing where it was a mosaic, all sorts of young artists and old, and I have a little mosaic in there, one of mine is in there. And, you know, every time you do something like that, the most important thing that that does is, number one, it recognizes that art is valuable. And number two, it makes people stand there and think. Like, even if you're not someone who wants to be an artist or really understands art, you stand there and you think. Like, you know, some of them, not any of the ones that we have downtown, but, you know, with art, you look at it and you think, well, I wonder what that's about, you know? And, you know, it might seem really odd to you.

Like, just to digress for a second, I spent, I don't know, it was three weeks, I think, with, the University of the Fraser Valley was doing a trip to the Biennale in Venice, which is an art festival from all over. the world. It's an, it's, and I went with them on this art study tour, um, a couple years ago. And, uh, it was just, we stayed in a monastery. It was, you know, very bare bones kind of thing, but they had arranged for us to get into all these incredible exhibits and things. And there was so many things that even I as an artist looked at and went, oh my gosh, what the heck is that, you know, and, and, and, but, but it is really, art is really meant to invoke kind of, feelings of interest and wonder and all sorts of things. Like, I can't tell you the amount of times I've heard people say, well, my kindergarten kid kind of painted that. Yeah, but that's not the point.

The point is that the artist had a message there. So what is the message that they're trying to convey or what was it that appealed to them about that? And it's not really quite that simple. But a lot of people just kind of don't understand art and think that it's kind of a waste. Well, I completely agree, and it's that lack of humility of, like, I've never seen this before. I don't know the artist, so maybe I don't know something, and maybe I need to be patient and wait for more information or the artist to walk by and explain their idea behind it. Maybe I don't know everything I need to know, and I think that people can lack that, especially when so many things are laid out for us, like good TV shows, for the most part, they tell you exactly what you need to know, and they'll repeat it in three different scenes. Yeah, and what they want you to think. Exactly.

You know, that's the thing about art. Everybody thinks something differently about it. And what a great exercise for the brain. Because, you know, as you say, quite often it's so totally spelled out for us that, you know, it requires no effort. And art is really good for that because it makes you think about things. It makes you wonder. Absolutely. So what has that development been like in Chilliwack because the cultural center did arise?

What was that process like to get that developed? Well, I have to say that was Pat Clark, who was a city council at the time, and I came on in 2008, and they were breaking ground. So I did not see the early phases of it, and I really can't take any credit for it, except for the fact that I have been a huge supporter of it, and I have been on their board, although Jeff Shields is doing it now. but it was, you know, it was a coming together of different arts and cultural groups in Chilliwack that needed a space. And so there was some money that everybody sort of put in and they were going to be like the premier kind of starters of it. And they, you know, over time it's kind of morphed and, you know, program. And we have Michael Cade who does, you know, the programming and that sort of. stuff there but um you know to sort of answer your question i think at the time and i remember

you know i was working for the chamber at the time and watching the pushback from the community you know we're not a large enough community to have this well you know i think first of all we've grown hugely and and i think that it's been proven that it's you know a really great thing to have in the community uh and hopefully the people that didn't want it at the time realized the value that it has brought to us. I mean, there's been lots of great shows and things that have happened there, but it's also opened the door for kids to learn how to play different instruments. You know, there's all these different rooms. They can do pottery. They can do, you know, all sorts of different forms of arts. And that's what it was meant to do. And Pat Clark

really, really pushed for that. And she worked really hard. And she managed to bring in some money for it and we got some money. I think there was some sort of government, like provincial government involvement as well, but I can't really say for sure because all of those kinds of things were worked out before I came along. But I think it was a big, probably a big part of why I wanted to go on council was the fact that I saw that, you know, there was room to create more of a multicultural community, you know, and by that I don't mean just different nationalities, but also different interests and passions. Absolutely.

And I think that that's so important because there's so many people who feel disconnected from the community and need a spot where they can go and practice drawing, even though they're not expert drawers and paint and develop friendships. And I don't think that we recognize that enough because we're so we all have our social groups

and we're supposed to stay within them kind of attitude that going out, like my mom's had an opportunity to utilize the cultural center and make friends and meet people and use the library and learn new skills and learn to crochet and do these things in the community that allows her to expand her social network so she doesn't feel so alone during a pandemic like we couldn't have expected this coming but it's so valuable to build those connections so you don't feel alone in your community and a lot of people move here and they're looking for how do I get involved and that's such an excellent place to start so can you tell us about some of your favorite art pieces is it

the visual arts, is it music? What inspires you? I think probably the favorite art piece that we've had in town for me was pencil fingers. Goodness, he used to be on my art committee too, and I've forgotten what is the actual real name, but the piece of five corners. Yes, it had to be. That was temporary. And it was always meant to be temporary.

And when he did it, it was, I just loved it so much that I immediately regret it that it was temporary. I wish we had put it somewhere where it would still be there. There's lots of, of course it's covered up now, there's lots of photographs of it and, you know, there's lots of opportunity maybe to put something else somewhere. The other one that I love to is the new Vedder Bridge. I think it really embraces, you know, our indigenous community and the history and the different, like, it was so well thought out. Like David Jimmy, when he and the artist that he worked with, I mean, the fact that all the paddles represent different groups within our community and the way that they face even has a meaning. And, you know, I don't, I don't profess to understand entirely what all the nuances are of it, but I think it's incredibly beautiful. It was also quite expensive, and, you know, I wish we had millions of dollars to do all sorts of really amazing things like that,

because the more expensive projects give you more leeway in how fabulous you can make it, you know? And, you know, we started off, I think, with about a $20,000 budget for public art and Chilliwack. And this hopefully, if this next budget passes, it's increasing. I can't say by how much, but we just did objectives and measures. And, you know, I always get, you know, I believe when you're budgeting for the city, and I know we're probably going to talk a little more about this, but that all the basics need to be covered. So you have to have good roads and good infrastructure and you know, you want to deal with all the things that could become a problem. It's just like when you're doing a budget for home.

You make sure there's food on their table, a roof over your head, you know, you have to cover those things. But when there is a bit of, you know, when it comes to the discretionary spending or what you're working towards, I'm always fighting for the arts. And, you know, the Reson Council laughs at me and yet they all, they laugh at me just because I'm such a loudmouth. But honestly, they also agree that these things are good too, right? But that's where the sort of the pushing and shoving starts with the different interests on council. Like, you know, you have, um, we have such a great council that we have business people and farmers. And, you know, so it, it, it, we definitely represent the whole community really equally. And, and I'm probably sort of the weird anomaly that's come from the city, who's traveled around the world, who's enjoyed

art in countries all over the world. And so I'm constantly badgering them for more money. And I actually got some this time. So that's, you know, really exciting. So what was the question? I forgot now. Well, I want to get into the budget part of things, but I also want to give you a lot of credit because I was listening to a city council meeting and you were talking about the upcoming

budget and people were allowed to write in their surveys and the responses and you were really pushing like are we going to get this out on social media how are we going to do this and it was just like well i'm so grateful that you're saying these things because i didn't know that and if i hadn't watched this video i wouldn't have known that there was an upcoming budget meeting yeah and so i went and i tried to do it i did do it but it was so difficult because it gives you like 500 and it asks you to try and figure out where to put the money where would you spend your money Yes, if I can spend it, however I like, how would I like it set up? And it was just like, oh, no, like, I don't know how to, I set all of it up. And then I was like, I spent my $500, like, too quickly. Now I have to go back in and try to re-ed it everything. I'm not going to be eating for a while. Yeah, exactly, because there's so many different issues that jump to your mind and you're like, oh, I need to spend $500 on just this one issue. And then you're like, well, you can't do that. You have to do a balanced approach. And I think that that would be so valuable if everyone in the community had to go through that because then you start to realize, that you can't just not do new infrastructure, you can't just leave all your roads to fall apart

and focus on just one thing. And so what is that like for you to have to sit down and prioritize so many important issues? And it's like none of them deserve to be thrown aside and say, don't bother. I think, you know, I think one of the things that makes being a city council is so much easier, and particularly in Chilliwack, is that we have an amazing team at City Hall. And so they all have their areas that they're responsible for. And when it comes to objectives and measures, which is what we call it, you know, what we need to focus on in the city, they all come with presentations on, you know, how are our roads doing? What equipment do we need to replace? How are we going to do this?

How are we going to do that? And they all have their areas of expertise, and they make counsel aware of what we need. And, you know, and they're very, very free. Because we are, you know, first of all, as a city, we have no debt. We're one of the very few cities that have, well, if any, other cities, we don't have any debt. And we, that's the way we save and spend. So they don't ask for anything that's not really essential. And so they make us really aware. And then there's other things that we may want to see, like, you know, when we see all those, right? And we know, okay, all that stuff needs to be covered. And, you know, and, you know, I, I, I, dare them to try and come to the table with something that's not absolutely essential because, you know, one of us will say, well, what do you need that truck for? Or, you know, can't we get a few more years out of this one? And, you know, and stuff like that. So, but they're so good. Like, they are so good and they care about the city so much. And then there's a certain amount

that's sort of discretionary funding. So do we want to build another sports field? And do we, and that's where sort of the wrestling comes in. But as far as, you know, the fundamental stuff, The city staff, really, they do all the work and say, you know, this is how much money we're going to need for this. And they go out to competitive bids and they do all this stuff to make sure that, you know, we're getting the best possible deal and the best kind of asphalt that's going to last the longest and what kind of paint you put on bike lanes and, you know, all of this kind of stuff. And they price check and, you know, they're pretty awesome. They make us look smart. I love that. That is so cool, because we don't ever think of that.

When we're driving through the community, when we see a new road built, we're like, oh, good, a new road. But we don't think about what quality of paint are they using. How long is it going to last? And that's where someone's really taking care of us and never really gets that recognition. It's like those little nubby road divider things, those reflector things. Do you know that every time they clear snow, they all get snapped off? I did not know that. So there's other kinds that you can put that go under, like they do.

They go into a little scoop and they sit in there. But they're like 10 times more expensive. So we always are, you know, and we put in new roads and we'll put in a certain amount of those kind, but they're expensive. And so we never really do it all in those or, you know, we would never replace them all in those because it's too expensive. But over time, we move a little bit more and a little bit. And they last almost forever. But, you know, they're so crazy expensive. and those other little reflector ones.

So you really have to balance off. And this is the thing that our public works, Glenn McPherson, is brilliant. Like he knows, you know, these ones will last this many years, and yeah, we'll get a certain amount of those because they're better, but they're super expensive. So then we'll get these other ones, and they get scraped off every year.

But then the crews go around, and how much does it cost us to stick them all back down again after the winter season is over? And, you know, things like that. Like, we don't even have to think about that. they make sure we know it, but... Exactly. I think, and that's so important because that's what brings us together as a community is recognizing that people care about making sure you're safe because those

things go towards safety. They make sure we know where the road is in those circumstances. It's not a trivial, nonsensical, like, who cares type of issue. It's how can we keep our community safe? How can we safeguard? I've seen so many new protections on near school zones and more boldly lit. And so what has that been like to know that your community's safer because of this? Well, it's good. Like those things, those crosswalk things that have kind of like, they have, I don't know, reflector things.

But anyways, when they push them, they like flash all the way across. And they're the new kind of save everyone thing. So we're trying to put as many of those in as possible. So now that's one thing that we do is we sit there and sort of say, okay, what areas have the most blind crossings, the worst areas or whatever? put them in there first, and then, you know, I mean, safety, obviously, the basics are always going to be the most important things. And then we plan for projects, but it takes us a few years to save for them. And a lot of times, like with the provincial government or the federal

government, they have grant money available, but you have to have your part put away. So we will say, okay, we want to build a new library, which we did in Sardis, right? And I was on board then. want to build a new library so then you start packing away that money to build the new library and people um are naturally impatient you know the people in the community we want our own library and you know they think we're doing nothing but we're putting the money away and then we wait for a grant a literacy grant or whatever to come from the province or the federal government and they'll say well we'll pay a third the province will pay a third and where's your third and if you don't have your third you're out of luck.

Yeah. So we have to make sure that we always have that money put away. And, you know, a lot of communities have borrowed and, you know, that over time. And so, I mean, I know when I was in my 20s, I was just like a complete spendaholic. I loved, you know, I had all these different areas of income and things I wanted to buy. But then, you know, eventually do you get yourself in debt? And then you spend all your time just trying to make your minimum payments on your credit cards and this, that, and the other thing. And, you know, it's the same thing for local government. If you don't owe

any money, you don't waste any of the tax dollars servicing your debt. And so you can do more things. Like I look at, that's why we're not as much in trouble. And we're not in trouble. But I mean, obviously during COVID, things have gone down. Revenues are down. We've given, you know, the community lots of breaks as far as paying their taxes late. And, you know, you utility things and stuff like that. And we've been able to do that because we don't have that debt. We're in areas, other areas where, you know, you have the mayor complaining that the government didn't give them nearly enough money and now they're going to have to raise their taxes to maybe 12 or 13 percent, we won't mention any names.

But they have huge debt. And that's, you know, so a huge portion of what the taxpayers are paying goes towards servicing those debts. And so obviously they can't do as much, except for by chairs. Well, and I think that that's true, especially in Canada right now, because I think they were talking about reducing our credit rating, and those things have impact on the communities. And I think that it's important to raise that awareness, because a lot of people in the, maybe it wasn't, it was the last election. I think raising taxes and lowering taxes was a big conversation for the community. And there were people who wanted to run for mayor who wanted to raise taxes and others who didn't. And that played a huge role in the conversation.

I had people saying, well, I don't want my taxes up. And it was like, this is so interesting because it's a point of contact and discussion that seems to be important to the community just as much as counsel. And that's so important that we're all on the same page about how do we manage our spending, how do we do it responsibly. And it's so nice to be able to come on and say, like, we're not in the circumstance. We didn't have to do outrageous amounts of debt and go through those processes. So the other part I wanted to ask about just while we were talking about the Cultural Center is that whole area. is just set up for community and for everyone. Like, you can go for a run all the way around.

You have the Chilliwack Coliseum, you have the cultural center, you have the landing leisure center, you have the curling club, you have the Evergreen Hall, all on one city block. And we're going to have something new. I mean, we have something new we're working on right now that's actually being built. It's called a pump track. Okay. And it is the biggest pump track apparently in North America. I don't know how that happened.

but you know because we don't have a huge amount of space there but a pump track is something that they use for like bike course type things you can tell how much I know about this because you know I'm not I'm not very athletic I'm very uncoordinated but anyways it's this pump track thing and and they're talking about possibly there'll be international or national competitions coming here just to use that pump track that's one more thing that's being added there now and is well under construction. And it's for bikes sort of, and it goes up and down, and it's got all sorts of cool corners,

and it's very engineered beautifully. And so that's being added to that area. That area, you know, at one time it was the exhibition park, right? And it was so sad for so many people who had, you know, used that area for so many years. And then it was kind of with the Red Barn. Oh, I'm losing my mind now. Heritage Park.

Yes. It was all moved there, right? And so a lot of those kind of things went there that would have originally. But the master plan for that area has turned into such a great kind of recreational, as you say. There's so many different things you can do there. And you will continue to see that area grow and be enhanced. The other thing that is really boring, but very expensive, is that it has to be, we're paving the whole thing eventually. I can't remember whether it's going to be this year or whatever, but trying to pave it all so that there's lots of parking for people in that area because, you know, gravel parking lots are hard on the community, they're hard on the road system, all the rest of it, because people bring that out onto the road.

So that area all has to be paved. And it's been sort of a line item that has been there. And sometimes it's been bumped and then it's been brought back. And I can't remember exactly which year we're doing it in now. But, I mean, just paving that parking lot is like astronomically expensive. Yeah. But you have, you know, that's one of those boring things you have to plan for. And it'll make a big difference to the community.

It's just like Spadina right now is also being beautified. And there's going to be planter gardens and stuff down the middle. and better parking and better traffic flow throughout there. It's all to enhance that area to make it better for the residents who live on that street and also for the people that are visiting the curling center, the landing sports center. You know, there's pickleball that goes on in the landing sports center, like constantly. And, you know, that at some point needs all to be resurfaced because right now it's cement and it's got to be, and pickleball is a huge thing in Chilliwack now. So we're trying to accommodate,

you know, everyone, just like the arts and everything else. You want to accommodate everyone's interest. And so it's, yeah, it's got to have that sort of bouncy floor in it. Right now, it's cement. I wouldn't want to be playing on cement. Like, what if you fall? You could crack a knee or whatever. But anyways, yeah. So, yeah. I think it's so important because when you're going there, it's so cool that you can take your kid to swimming lessons and then maybe take them to curling or take them from swimming lessons to go and do art or have your son go and play hockey and then have like all of these different activities that you can do there's a skate park and that's where I think that the community is going to be pulled so much is because there's so much

to do there and it's all the one stop it doesn't feel like the arts are in their own category where you have to drive somewhere obscure to go and do art it's it's right in the there with hockey and it has that equal leveling, which I think to your point of trying to raise the understanding of the cultural center and the value of the arts is happening when you can have all of those things together. And I think downtown is going through a huge rate vitalization right now. So can we talk about that and what that's been like to watch for you? Because you started in 2008 in a very bleak time in our economy and now we're here. Yeah, we had that one building on the corner and I've forgotten what it was called now, which is terrible. I have the worst memory.

but it's not that I don't care about this stuff, but I forget. The Empress Hotel? No, it was the Empress Hotel, but then there was also that building that was on the corner, and it started, I think, with an H. But anyway, and it was all boarded up, and the Amperts Hotel had all sorts of issues with, you know, leaking grossness, and it was falling down. And, you know, I think at one point when I looked at the Empress Hotel, I thought, oh, I wish we could take that beautiful building and just kind of,

and the Paramount, I know you were involved with that. So, I mean, there's, there's, there's, the revitalization of that area was a difficult one for council. When I started in 2008, we, you know, the area was really starting to fall into disrepair. And, you know, we didn't have the homeless issue that we have now. That sort of has come over time. But at that particular time, it was just the fact that most of the business and that sort of thing had moved to Sartist,

or, you know, they were moving out to Eagle Landing. I'm not sure whether Eagle Landing was there at that point or not. But, you know, it's sort of the excitement had fallen away from the downtown. And we have a beautiful downtown, but it also needs, it needed something. So, you know, there was consultants that were brought in. I think at one point, John Jansen wanted a Dutch village. down there. That was the concept, or it was going to be this, that, or the other thing. And, you know, there was so many, we all read a book called the tipping point. And, you know, I'm not much of a reader. I read for education only. I actually hate reading. And that was part of the reason probably I hated school, because I really didn't like reading or math. So, you know, that was a problem. But anyways, and that, you know, the basic premise was that, you know, you get to a point. You fix the little things. get to a point where you have to do sort of a major thing that will tip it in the right direction.

So what is that thing? What are we going to put all this money into that's going to make that kind of a difference? So, you know, what ended up happening is we bought up all of those properties downtown. You know, we bought them from local people or people that weren't around anymore and basically, or I don't think we had to expropriate anything in that area. But, you know, we bought all those properties and it was um and we put them together as one block and then we put it out to a developer thinking okay now we have millions of dollars invested in this to try and but you know it's it's more of a it's not a real estate fund it's a social fund you know you're thinking about it from that perspective that you know you want to improve that area how you're going to make it

how you're going to hit the tipping point yeah so we spent all this money uh bought all the property and then we put it out to tender. And there was some very interesting concepts that came back. And we, at the end of the day, we picked the Alga brothers because I think they really showed to us that they respected the historic presence of the downtown. And they really wanted to recreate that. So when they couldn't save it, what they were going to replace it

with was going to be a nod to the original buildings and the original feel of the downtown and all the rest of it. And we voted and it, you know, it was, it was tough going. It wasn't unanimous. People, we all sort of thought, well, I think this would really revitalize here. And I would really, you know, and at the end of the day, we ended up picking the Alga brothers. And I think they've done an amazing job. And I think it will help us. deal with some of the social issues down there. But bearing in mind that, you know, you move them out of the downtown core, you move the people who are struggling, it doesn't mean they go away.

It just means they're not in that area, right? And social issues are really the responsibility of the provincial government. And over the last few years, with an incredibly strong team at City Hall, Karen Stanton, she and Mike what's this last name I forgot anyways doesn't that's not I just want to give them some credit but anyways I forgot what his last name is anyway

they have worked very hard to get us on the raider of the provincial government to say hey we have a real big problem here because we weren't even listed as one of the cities that were in jeopardy with you know homelessness issues and all the rest of it we weren't and now we are And now we're getting funding, and now we're getting places for these people to live and be helped, to have the wraparound services and things for them. One of the reasons why I think all of the municipalities have come up against dealing with so many social issues is that they close Riverview. And at Riverview had some horrible human rights kind of violations from what I'm.

understand it was sort of before my time but people were treated badly there and they were it was almost like you know the one flew over the cuckoo's nest kind of asylumy kind of place and instead of making improvements and and improving the lives and the care and all of those things they just closed it and they pushed all the people that were suffering out into the communities and you know at the time they, they were probably on a medication regime and they were doing well and all the rest of it. And all of those things sort of fell away. And these people then migrated to the streets because they're not being medicated. They're not being helped. They're kind of left to fend for themselves and pushed it out to the cities. And then, you know, as we have people

with mental illness and addiction issues increasing, there's also nowhere to send them. So, it's become the problem of every city. And, you know, Chilwack is not alone in that. Um, and so I think, you know, that if we could go back to, uh, the type of system where we actually did have a river view, where people could, with really severe mental illness issues could go and people could work with them. And then they put them into like group home kind of, you know, once they got them stabilized and all the rest of it. Like, you shouldn't feel like if you go there, you're there forever. You know, that, you know, they could put them into group homes and they could be monitored

and make sure they're taking their medication so that they can live happy lives. Like everybody, every human being wants to be happy and feel normal. When you don't feel normal, it's hard to make good decisions and you end up on, you know, in a lot of cases these people end up on the streets and they're just not getting the supports that they need. So anyway, I mean, the source. Social issues are always going to be there. I think that we need a really strong focus on managing it better. And I think certainly Ken and city council have made great strides in that.

But it's really hard to know what will work. What's the best? What's the best thing to do? I completely agree. And I think that this also goes back to 2008. because we had a recession, and I don't think a lot of us realize that that is part of the reason that housing prices went so high after the fact that we paid so many consequences that we don't really put it at the foot of such a big financial impact that caused a lot of people. I remember my mom worked at Creekside at one point in time, and the people upstairs were struggling with addictions, but they were able to do it in this like 150 square foot, 200, like not a very big place, but they had a place where they could, their social assistance. Stint's checks would be able to pay for them to live in the small little nook and cranny area.

To be warm. To feel that they were in their own home. Yeah. That when 2008 hit, all of that went away. Now these prices are going up and those people can't afford to live anymore, live there anymore, and they're pushed onto the streets. And then when I was working as a native court worker, it didn't feel like the issue was like a lack of housing, which I do think is absolutely a factor. It was that they didn't want to leave anyone behind. And they've developed their own culture on the street.

of like my closest friend is like Nick and I would never leave Nick under any circumstances ever and it's like okay well how do I get you housing if you don't want to leave this person and it's like now I have to try and find a group place where you can both be together and that limits the options and people don't want to abandon their friends and family when they're on the streets as well and so we run into these issues of like I could never convince someone to abandon their comrade on the streets because it is this mindset of like we're surviving this together and that's stronger than me coming in and saying oh i have this solution and you can just move out to promontory and we have like a nice treatment bed for you and it'll all be easy peasy like

they don't want to leave that person behind and so we run into these types of issues and i'm grateful that i've heard experts talk from frd and they they get it they see that we're up against very complex social issues and that's so important and so inspiring because people will read the newspaper and get very frustrated that this isn't a fixed problem and it's like but we have the best minds who understand the nuances of the issue, and I think that that's so valuable. So can we talk a little bit more about what it's like to be a city counselor and what it's like to run?

Because that must have been such a big moment to decide to run in 2008. It was. At the time, I was working as the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in a job that I loved, I have to say. But it's like anything. You know, once you're in a job like that, become more aware of your city and you've become more aware of the things that you would like to, um, the input that you'd like towards change and improvement, especially when you love your city.

Like I love Chilliwack. And, and I thought, you know, there will never be a better time than now because I am armed with information and knowledge that I never had before that. Because honestly, you know, you go about your day-to-day life and if you're not working in the kind of an environment where you're getting that information. So, and I was also writing articles for the progress and the times about business and, you know, so my name was out there. I was involved. I had a lot of clients from Tell Us, our BCTel days that were in, and so they knew my names. There was a lot of business people from there. I was also, also the president of the Rotary Club, the Chilac Mount Sham Rotary Club at the time, 2007 to 2008.

So I was, you know, people knew my name from that. And I thought, you know, a big part of being elected is name recognition. And if you want to do this for the right reasons, they always talk, people when they come to me and they say, you know, I'm thinking about running for counsel and I say, well, why? why do you want to rent for council? Well, you know, I want to be an MLA someday or I want to do this someday and those things are all, you know, valid. But I think the most important thing is that you really want to make a difference in your community and you love it here. And it is, you know, people think that the job is all about glory and all the rest of it. The best city councilors that I've ever worked with are people that listen more than they talk. Like I get criticized for that,

I don't talk that much at city council meetings, but if somebody's already asked a question or I've already heard what I need or, you know, I don't have any questions, I'm not going to just talk for the happiness of hearing my own voice. And I think that you have to kind of check your ego. Like, is it about your ego? Is it going to make you feel good to be, you know, a city counselor? Because I'm going to tell you, it's not always nice. Like, it's not nice to be a city counselor. But anyway, so that's, you know, at that point, I decided to run because I thought, well, maybe I would have a chance. And then you go through all candidates, debates, and things like that, and you realize how little you do know, first of all. You can be very insecure because you think, oh, my gosh, I didn't know

that, or I didn't know this. And it's humbling. And then you go to the election night and you think at the first one it was like oh well you know if i don't get in i gave it a good try and all the rest of it and i did and i was like really shocked because i didn't really 100% expect to get in and you know and i still have huge insecurities left from being bullied and and you know not having a very supportive mother at times and all the rest of it and i you know so insecurity is a big part of who i am like i can be really brave out there and i'm kind of mouthy but honestly you know i was insecure about it. And I was so excited. And then you get into the job and you, you know, they always say, you don't know what you don't know. And really, I didn't know a lot. And so the first year is a big

learning curve. But as I say, if you're doing it for the right reasons, you'll put in your time, you keep your mouth shut a little bit and try and just understand. Seek to understand is the most important thing. And nowadays, like the last few elections, so how many elections have I've been through? At the end of this will be 14 years, but the first two terms, I think, were three years, and then four and four. So that's four elections I've been through. And the last one was particularly difficult, I think, because of social media.

and probably the last couple of terms have been way more difficult because of social media. I think social media is an amazing tool. To get information out there, I use it a lot for the Hospice Society. I use it a lot as a city councilor. I think it's probably one of the biggest services I give the community is to make them aware of what their opportunities are for feedback or, you know, what's going on, we're having a hazardous waste thing, whatever, like all the services that we provide are useless unless people know about them.

So I think from that perspective, it's a very, very powerful tool. But for me, it's the trolls. It's the people that get behind their keyboard and say, they're doing nothing. When I know for the last six years we've been fighting for dollars or we've been fighting for this or this, that, the other thing. They're so stupid. They're so, you know, just. you know they're doing this for political reasons they're you know after this person when it's just absolute baloney like you know i don't think there's any of us i mean over time i've worked with some really

horrible city counselors and i've worked with some good ones and for the most part i think people do it for the right reasons they care about their community they do it with honesty and integrity and try and work super, super hard because they care. And so it, you know, it hurts my feelings when people say mean things about me. And, you know, most people say, oh, well, you know, it's just water off a duck's back or whatever. Or you signed up for this is the one you get a lot, which I completely disagree with because you're like. I signed up to work for you. I didn't sign up to be, yeah, but sorry, I interrupted. No worries. I just, I wanted to. to say that you have so much connections to the community, even if you removed the title of

city councillor, that for anyone to question your decisions in that way is just, it's kind of silly because you have so many important ties to the community. You are fighting for the right things. And I think that that's the case with a lot of city councillors, but you have a special resume of like, I've been out there. I've been giving my free time because I care. And so for someone to turn around and question you or to leave those comments, it's like, that's not even, you. That's not even fair if you look at her resume because when I looked at it, it was just like, wow, there is a lot on here. She's not getting, she's just giving her time because she cares. And some city counselors are there for the right reasons, but they still don't have that volunteer background

that shows that they are willing to just work for free. And that's where you can clearly see your passion. So, go on. Well, yeah. And it's, I think, I think that it's really counterproductive for community. And there's a lot of people that are not going into politics. There's a lot of people who are leaving politics who are there for the right reasons and doing really great things because they just can't handle it anymore. I can't, you know, and I've been somewhat lucky because I'm not overly controversial in any way. You know, I'm pretty liberal in the way that I view our community and the world. I'm certainly well-traveled and I understand that every single human being brings their gift to this.

And, you know, it's unfair for people to be judgy and all the rest of it. So, yeah, you know, it hurts my feelings. It's made me cry many times, you know, and I think to myself, well, stop. That's so stupid. Like, don't be like that. You know, everybody's entitled to opinion. And I 100% agree with that. I want to know what the community thinks.

Probably the hardest thing about being a counselor right now is not being able to have people at meetings because that input matters to me. But just be nice about it. Like say to me, instead of saying, I think you're stupid and useless and what the hell does she do anyway and just say,

I don't understand why we haven't been able to solve this. Or when you made this decision about this thing, can you explain to me what went into that decision so I can try and understand why you made that decision that way? You know, be respectful as I would be respectful towards you. And, you know, I try so hard not to bite when it's out there, you know. not to respond, not to engage in disrespectful conversations. If you want to come at me in a respectful way, I am there for you all day. But the moment that that happens, I just shut right off. And I don't think there's too many people that don't.

You know, you go into fight or flight. Well, I will choose flight every time when I know I'm dealing with someone who is not going to be reasonable. Yeah. And that totally makes sense. I think that that's where we run into issues of discreet. encouraging people to want to run and lead our community and it's this lack of knowledge and entitlement that there's some sort of issue and they're kind of grandstanding at you telling you well if we just fix this problem the whole world like fixing the homeless issue is a serious issue

and I don't think anybody's on the other side of it but people will regularly say like well nobody's doing anything about it and it's like you don't understand how complex these issues are and if I sat you down and walked you through well we could do this but there's four consequences to it and we could do this but there's these problems that arise and and will this work and is this what they want? And you have to understand that there's free will involved. And, and, you know, there are laws that protect people from being forced to do things they don't want to do. And, you know, and addiction is an illness and a disease. And, you know, yeah, it's challenging. But on the other hand, when you get a win, it's thrilling. You know,

when you make the right decision and it seems to be working and people are thriving, wow, what a great feeling that is. And I think that's part of it. That keeps you going. Absolutely. And I think that it's so, it's so nice to look at city council and see all of these fantastic stories because each one of you have come from different places. Totally different places. Accomplish different things and have done it in your own ways where you can clearly see the passion that's behind it. And I think the development of our community is a real testament to the work you guys are doing and the city staff are doing because it does things just get better in the community and we just all take that for granted like how well our parks and how well Vetter road the trails are looking

we just all take it for granted and go oh this looks great like perfect and we don't give credit to you guys well and yeah and on the flip side of that we screw up we've made lots of stupid decisions for the right reasons but things that haven't worked or have been really the wrong direction to go, I think a big part of being a good human being is admitting when you're wrong and saying, you know what, that didn't work, but we learned from it or that didn't work. I mean, city council is not infallible. We make mistakes. And, you know, just like any other business, you know, if you're running the city like a business, you make mistakes. Fortunately, we have incredibly talented, knowledgeable people on staff backing us. And

And, you know, and every once so out there, they have to be weighed very carefully, but they say things like, well, I'm pretty sure that you haven't considered that, you know, oh, right, okay. You know, and then you realize, okay, that would probably wouldn't, wouldn't have worked. Yeah. But, you know, that's awesome. They save us quite often from ourselves. Well, we're very lucky to have them. I'm curious as to if there's any role models within this position that you've had the opportunity to learn from or work with or people who have kind of inspired your decision. in any sort of way, just because I think that you're in a unique seat when you're acting as city councillor and you're playing this role in our community. And so it would be interesting

to see where you get your inspiration from. Well, probably, I have a couple of role models as far as staff goes. Karen Stanton is, I don't know what her actual, I should have looked up her title, but she deals with a lot of the social issues. She's involved in the homelessness situation. She works with the government to try and bring us funding. She's lobbying for us. She is lovely, respectful. She lifts other women up at City Hall. She's a mentor.

She's going to be a rotary president for the Chilac Mount Chewreck Mount Chewam Rotary Club. You know, if there was still a woman of the year, they're not doing it anymore too bad. but if there was a woman of the year, I would nominate her because I think she is incredibly hardworking. She's a mom. She has these wonderful twin boys. She's a family person. She's not too rigid or judgy about other people's beliefs. She's very, yeah, I definitely look up to her.

She's younger than I am, so I look down and then I look up and say, Wow, you know, you sort of, when you think of people that you look up to, it's quite often people who have come before you. Yeah. But she is, yeah, she's amazing. And, you know, probably Carol Marlowe, who works with a public art committee and parks and wreck, I think she's involved with. She does, you know, a lot of the different facility stuff throughout this. So she does a really good job. And on the side of the guys, Glenn McPherson, who's public work,

He runs all the crews, he makes all the plans for parks, he's very involved in trails. He is totally a visionary. He's a really great hardworking guy. He gets his staff out there 24 hours a day when there's an emergency. They all love him because he's so respectful and he's just a really super great guy and very dedicated. So those would be the ones certainly at City Hall that I probably the respect the most. That's awesome because these are the people who are making the plans, developing the community,

supporting the people in all of their roles. And those are people we never hear from as community members when we attend like in all candidates meeting, these names never get mentioned. And so we don't get to know the people underneath doing all that hard work. So that's so great.

Can we move into the Chilliwack Hospice Society and some of the other roles that you play in our community? Okay. Well, this Chilwick Hospice Society is It's just the love of my life. I have to say, it's, you know, most people think that the Hospice Society is Cascade Hospice, where people go at end of life. And that is it not in fact true. We don't own that building. We don't operate that building. It is owned by Sienna Senior Living, and it is funded by Fraser Health. But what we do for them is we provide all the volunteers. So we train them. We give them extensive training. on how to relate to people, how at end of life. And, you know, it's 30 hours, and then it's a bunch of extra hours, you know,

for bedside and vigils and things like that. So we have a whole army of people that go in there and they sit with people and hold their hands and brush their hair and read to them. And we have a relaxation therapy team that goes in and does Reiki with them. Or, you know, sometimes they just play music. music. You know, one of our staff, Lori, goes in there and she was playing her guitar for them. And we just really provide the comfort side of things. You know, the nursing and all that kind of stuff is handled by Fraser Health. And we don't do that. But we, you know, we bring them cookies

and tea and, you know, all of our volunteers. And they're just so dedicated. That is not a job I could do. You know, I am such a marshmallow. Anyone who has ever died in my life, I've completely completely lost my shit. Like I am just not, sorry about that. No worries, no worries. But yeah, I don't, I don't handle it well. I don't handle loss well. And so I couldn't do that job. But these people, I mean, they develop relationships. Some people are in there for three months. Some people are in there for 10 days. Most people wait too long before they arrange for someone to go to hospice because they're trying to look after them at home. And what I always say to people is, you know, when they asked me, when should you put someone into hospice care? And I say, you know what?

When you know that they're really deteriorating and there's a lot of care that you have to give them, do you want at end of life to be the person who is changing someone's diapers and, you know, looking after their personal care and all of those things, or do you want to be, their spouse sitting there reminiscing about all the wonderful things that have been in your life, talking about your kids and how much you love them and how much you love the life that you've had together. Do you want the things that you remember to be the icky medical care kind of things? Or would you rather have a professional person do that so that you can have that quality time with them? People are very hesitant. And some

people don't want to go into hospice care, like the person themselves doesn't. They'd rather be cared for at home. But I think that's one thing that people don't consider enough, that the memories that you have of that person and the time, the very valuable time at the end of life that you have with someone, should be all about loving each other. And I think that's really, really important. So anyways, so what the hospice society mostly does is that we look at people who are left behind. We look after people before they get so sick that they have to go into hospice care or that they're bedridden. So we deal with palliative patients and we deal with the bereaved. We deal with little kids, you know, four or five years old say, you know, well, we deal

with them from that age right up to 19 or 20. That's sort of our kids group. And, you know, kids will come in and they'll say, you know, maybe their dad has died. And, you know, they'll say, my mom cries all the time. And when my dad died, she stopped loving me. This is hard for me because it's so, you know, it's just so devastating. And we help the kids understand that it's not that mommy doesn't love you anymore. It's that she's so sad and she just wants daddy back. And, you know, so when you don't deal with that stuff,

then kids can all of a sudden sort of move away and and it sets them on a path where they can get in trouble and act out and do stupid things and trying to get attention from the person that they really love. So I think that a lot of what we do with the kids group is we prevent those kids from making bad choices emotionally and whether it be their relationship at home or not understanding or whatever, right? So that is very, very important work. But we also deal with the spouse that was left behind who has never had to balance the books or pay the bills or any of those things. Or their entire world was around their spouse and we get them into groups with people who are going through the same thing. And we teach some things. Like we have a whole educational section that does, you know, banking. Right now we're doing advanced.

care planning with people so that they can decide what they would want at end of life. And, you know, it sounds so morbid, but you can do it when you're 20. Like if something were to happen to you so that your family doesn't have to make those decisions of when to take you off a ventilator and when to do all of these things and what you would want, am I an organ donor? They don't want to make those decisions because there's so much guilt and remorse involved, right? So we help people make those plans, so it makes it easy on families.

You know, we, one of the stories I like to sort of talk about as far as hospice care is there, you know, the groups come in. And, you know, at one time there was probably 20 people in a group. And they would be anywhere from, you know, adult through senior, senior, right? And they come through the door and they're broken and they're grieving and they're uncomfortable because they don't want to sit in a room full of strangers and talk about how they're feeling, right? and they have their caring with them this jar of grief say you know and it is just absolutely overflowing and we work with them for eight weeks and we get them talking and they talk about the guilt that they might have or the regret or uh i wish i had done this or you know and they they understand that dying is a part of living and what you're feeling now is

is just really a product of loving someone, which is so great, right? And so when they leave, they have their jar, and in the bottom of the jar is the grief. And the grief is still there. The grief will always be there, and it will come in waves, because that's the price of love. But the rest of the jar is open, and it's ready to accept love and joy and happiness and to be prepared to live on and to understand that you deserve to find new happiness. And so that's what we do. And it's very emotional work, but it's also the most incredibly rewarding thing I've ever done. And my staff, like we have Lucy Fraser and Jen Baker.

There are two program people. We have not been able to replace our child and youth. person at this point. So Jen and Lucy are picking that up for us bit by bit, but because of financial reasons. We can't, we've lost $190,000 this year because we can't have events. And none of our programs we charge for. Like everything we do is free. So, and like all the training we do is free, everything, right? So anyways, but Jen and Lucy are the most amazing humans. And so we, we meet, And Lori, too, she does the education. I mean, all of my staff, they're just so dedicated to this.

But when it comes to Jen and Lucy, right now, they're dealing with people that are not only suffering grief, but they're suffering grief at a time when the hospitals are shut down. So their husband or their child or, you know, their person had to die alone. And they weren't there to hold their hand or they weren't there to do this. And so there's that added thing. The other thing is that we are dealing with probably 20% more people who are coming back after five years or whatever, who have come to terms with their grief, but now their social network is all isolated from them. And it's all back again.

If, you know, if he was still alive or she was still alive, I would have someone here with me. I wouldn't be so lonely. I wouldn't be feeling so alone. I wouldn't be so afraid. I wouldn't be this. It wouldn't be that. So, you know, it's really exasperated, exacerbated, I should say, the amount of work that we have. So I'm really working very carefully to make sure that Jen and Lucy are doing enough self-care,

like to take the time to walk away from it for a bit. And, you know, they both have strategies on what they do. Like Lucy loves to walk. She lives in Yarrow. She's like this crazy hippie. She's fabulous. She's wild. They used to call her the crazy cat lady.

in Yarrow, but she's just so interesting and she walks and she enjoys nature and, you know, and we talk every, like when we have our staff meeting, we all talk about what we're doing for self-care because this is a very difficult time to be involved with the Hospice Society. And then, of course, I have Sandy Parker and Stephanie and Susan who run our thrift store, which is the only real source of income we have coming in right now and they're dealing with, you know, volunteers that are all seniors and how do we keep them protected and the protocols that we have in place for keeping them safe they all want to be there because they know that the money that they bring in is keeping us alive right so um and we have all these crazy protocols and you know

wipe wipe and and you know they have face masks and they have um everybody wears face masks there's nobody comes into our store without face masks and um you know they they've all got the barriers at the front and in the you know the back we have wipes and spray and stuff everywhere and so just trying to keep everybody safe because probably i don't know i'd say about 70% of our volunteers are over 70 and there are a lot of the people that you know have gone through our and loved being involved with hospice and said hey i'd love to volunteer for you guys yeah yeah so that's so it's hard to get past because a community needs this They need somewhere to go where they don't have to stress about payments after such a loss.

And they need someone who's going to be supportive and understanding and take the time to have the extra conversation before you go into a meeting, who's not going to force them into anything. And to have someone who has your passion is so important. And it's why I started this is because there are real people out there who want the best for us, who want the best for the community, who want the best for you when you're about. There are people who haven't lost their significant other yet, but they're going to, and they're going to enter your doors one day. Well, they may be with us already. In a perfect world, we go through the process with them, and so that we're there to support them the whole way, not only them, but they're a person who's worried about how will they survive after they're gone, right? So, you know, we provide all of those kinds of services. And yes, thank you.

Because we're very, you know, we're not that well known. I mean, we've worked so hard to try and get the word out there. But, you know, when you say Chilliwack Hospice Society, people think of Cascade Hospice. And it's, we're just so, so much more than that. Well, and I think that this is so valuable because people don't think about these things and they avoid it. And if you ask people, do you have a will, they don't want to talk about it. Like, yeah, I'm getting there. And in a few years, I'll have it all sorted out.

And it's like, you won't because it's a topic everybody wants to avoid. And it's so difficult to get people to open up on these types of issues. Because it's so easy for us to think that it won't happen to us. And when it does, everything will just fall into place. Like, I know people who their plan is everything will just fall into place when I pass. And it's like, it won't. People will focus on the wrong issues and will debate over things and have someone who's doing the job. But, like, yeah, they spend their whole lives protecting.

their family, but they don't protect them in the most important way, which is all those horrible feelings that they have when there's issues and, yeah, and wills and things like that. I mean, we obviously don't get into wills and stuff like that, but I always say that, you know, I have chosen a path where I deal with the two most certain things in life, death and taxes. Yeah. Well, and that's true, but you're also doing it with this passion and this kindness that people need in those moments and all of your staff do better when they have a leader who actually cares and who actually like gets emotional at having to talk about it because if you were just like a stone cold like and we're just going to cut down the budget and we're just going to cut these

things and like that's not what you need in those moments you need someone who has hope and who's going to like understand where your volunteers are coming from and how hard that is and trying to maintain morale during a time like this has got to be so difficult and that's where our community's so lucky is because each time I look behind the curtain and find out the person leading it, it's someone who's doing it because they care and we're so lucky to have that because I've met people, I've worked in nonprofits, where the person isn't that interested in the staff. And it's like, you can't do that because your staff gets discouraged and they're not as supportive when they're dealing with the client. If they don't think that anything's going

to come of that, that means anything good for them or their self-esteem. And that's where we can run into those issues. So we're so lucky to have that. Can you tell you, us a little bit more about any anecdotal stories of working with people and seeing like a great volunteer or anything like that. Oh my goodness. Well, we have some, we have some wonderful volunteers, honestly. I would say Vicki Robinson is, I'm probably not supposed to use her last name. But anyways, Vicky has been involved with a lot of the bedside stuff at Cascade Hospital. She also gets involved with the teen group. She also gets involved with the grief groups.

She recently lost her own mother and, you know, was still there. Every day, you know, she's, we have so many great volunteers and so many of them have been with us for a number of years. But they're generally drawn to us because they've been through our services in some way. And they think, wow, you know what, this was so helpful to me. I just want to give back to it. And then they get hooked on it. They get hooked on the, there is a great sense of,

of personal healing and joy that comes out of making people happy again, you know, or helping them know that being happy is okay, you know, that there is life after you lose someone. And it doesn't mean that you're being disloyal to them or to the memory of them or whatever, but you need to live on.

and that's what they would want. So I don't know. I mean, it's really hard to say. We have, you know, probably 150 or 200 volunteers, and I could probably spend all day talking about each and every one of them. Like, they all bring something different to the table. We have office volunteers that have regular shifts with us, so they are a receptionist.

We don't have to pay a receptionist. All our receptionist covered by volunteers. When we used to have events, we'd probably have 100 volunteers setting it all up, tearing it all down, getting, you know, all the auction items, getting the wine bottles, getting this, that, you know, like donations from people. There's just, it's, I mean, we are a volunteer organization, basically. We have, let's see, how many, seven, I think we have six or seven staff, you know, I never

remember, but at the actual society, we have three staff at the store, and, you know, we sometimes, some days we see 2,000 people. Wow. In the store. I mean, our store is 9,000 square feet. Yeah. Have you been there? No.

You have to go. It's so fabulous. And it's, you know, it's, there's a huge variety of stuff. Our prices are really, really cheap. And we keep it that way. The volume that goes through there makes us money. And, and we love the fact that people get so excited about all the little treasures that they find. and yeah, I mean, it's really great.

Well, I think that that's so awesome because specifically with like a role model, I've always tried to make the definition clear. And it's somebody who's willing to face adversity. And going in and supporting someone in that moment is not something anybody thinks they're capable of doing. And obviously you have volunteers who are willing to go in there and support people in an incredibly hard moment. To watch that moment occur is hard for people to comprehend. And to have volunteers who just do that don't get paid, don't get any big banners put out in the middle of, like, town hall. Like, it doesn't happen like that.

But they're willing to do it because they care. They're very anonymous. Like, nobody ever wants to take any credit for anything. You know, once or twice a year, we have a volunteer appreciation. And this year, actually, we had planned to do like a gala kind of event because we have galaes every year. But the volunteers are always working them. So we thought, why don't we have? volunteer gala. So every dress is up and long gowns and all the rest of it. And, you know, we'll

use all of our leftover stuff from all our other gala. So the theme will be different per table or whatever and stuff like that. And yeah, I mean, they're just, they're amazing. That's just, I love them. I cannot imagine running that because you're involved in the grief of Chilliwack all the time. Like, people who have to go through that, that's what you would go there for, is to get support through those moments. And that is such an important part of our society because a lot of us don't know how to deal with death. And nobody ever wants to talk about death. No. And they, you know, they say the hospital, oh, aren't those the death people?

You know, it's like, well, yeah, but actually, I like to think of it as we're the rebirth kind of people. we're the I don't know we're not the death people and it's not you know it's not necessarily all about death it's all about love and living on you know that's to me what it's what we do that's what we do that's awesome can you tell us how you got into that role well as I have said um you know I I really when my grandparents died I was very close to my grandparents and they lived out here in Chilliwack and then they ended up going into Richmond to be close to my parents when they were really, really old. But, you know, I actually, I had to be sedated. I was, they died within, I don't know, three or four days of each other.

They were 90 and 92, and they've been married since they were 15 and 17. And, you know, they're little twin beds at this place, this care home they were in. They pushed them together so they could hold their hand, hold hands at night. My grandmother taught me how to bake and make pie crust. My grandfather brought puffed wheat to North America. He, you know, the big bags of puff wheat. He used to come with a Dutch lady on the front of it. He brought that technology to North America.

And he was like a fuller brush salesman. He went door to door as a salesman. And then he found out about this opportunity. They're trying to, you know, sell the patent or whatever it was. I'm not sure the business plan on this stuff. Brought it to North America and ended up like, Being a millionaire. He, you know, he did really, really well. And he was a business guy, but he was also kind of a, you know, he was a hunter and a hick. And he was, he was a, he had done orchards and caramias and all the rest of it. But anyways, when they died, I was terrible, like absolutely terrible. And then, um, I had a friend when I worked to tell us, uh, Kathy, Buchatsky, I can use her name. And, uh, We were best friends for, I don't know, 25 years and so close.

And she had hepatitis C. And we worked in all the same departments over the years. Every time we went for a job improvement or a new management job, we both applied to the same area. So we stayed together. And we both worked at mobility together. And she had hep C, which basically kills your liver. And at that time, there was nothing that you could really take to get rid of it.

She was on interferon and a bunch of other drugs. But, you know, and then she was on the liver transplant list. And, you know, it was hard to get her on the list or get them to agree to it. But she was responding fairly well to the interferon. And they don't like to give a liver to someone who's still sick, right? It's just like if you have alcoholism and you're not prepared to stop drinking, they won't give you a new liver. They won't put you on the transplant list.

So anyways, they found a match for her. it was, but it was like a living donor, I think. And, but it was someone, because she had an odd blood type. And she was in the hospital being prepped for that, and she got a blood infection. And she died the night before that she was supposed to have the surgery. Oh, my gosh. And, and I think that I probably had a full nervous breakdown with that one. She was probably, I mean, I,

You know, I was married, and I married my husband in 1989. We stayed married for seven years. Then we got divorced for, I don't know, four or five years. Then we got married again because I thought he kind of figured out what he was supposed to be doing as a dad. But, you know, he ended up not being what I wanted again. So then I divorced him again. So she was really the longest-term relationship I've ever had in my life. Very, very, very close.

And she was probably the closest thing I've ever had to having really a long-term spouse. That sounds weird, right? And her children used to say, I think you guys are lesbians. And we'd say, well, no, but it would sure be good if we could be. Because, I mean, it's like the perfect relationship. We were just inseparable, talked to each other every day. So when she died, I totally lost my mind. And I didn't go to the hospice society.

I chose instead to be very kind of destructive and, you know, it was it was bad for several months you know and i mean i worked i guess still through that i took a bunch of time off um but i i i couldn't i couldn't talk about her without weeping i couldn't i actually i still to the stay can't actually drive to her house her i see her children and her ex-husband her husband um that was i think 12 years ago that she died uh so it was right before i went on council And anyways, yeah, I've never been able to drive for a house. I think I become absolutely hysterical if I get anywhere in her neighborhood. It's the weirdest thing.

And so I know that I don't cope well with loss. And, you know, I volunteered quite a bit, helping the hospice society with their events and things over the years. And I kind of thought that, you know, I sort of knew what they were. all about. But when I first got the job, like I applied there because I, I love the organization. I love the work that they did. And, you know, I love being involved with it. And I thought, what a great place to work. And people said, are you nuts? That's going to be like so depressing. And, you know, you're already kind of a marshmallow to begin with. So you're not going to be good at this. And I said, yeah, no, no. I think it'll be fine. I think it's very positive,

actually. And blah, blah, blah. And then I had to go through the training. You have to go through this 30 hours of training, and you talk about your experiences with grief. Well, you know, they had hired me at this point, thank goodness, because I was like a complete mess through the entire training. All I did was like sob every week for this thing. And the staff who are giving the training are thinking, this woman is like really off her marbles. But anyway, it was really, really good for me because I think it was the, I had, I finally got to the point where I was actually dealing with it and you know what my triggers were and you know being okay with the fact that you know people die and babies are born and you know and it's the it's the time we have together that matters

and the you know and all and I have so many wonderful memories but you know still probably she died on January 15th and her birthday was December 27th and both days are very difficult for me every year. And, yeah, and, of course, I've lost my mom and dad since then. My mom, I was, you know, obviously sad, but our relationship was a bit toxic, so it was not as hard for me. But my dad, you know, I mean, he taught me how to do plumbing and electrical and all this. And you can do anything a boy can do. And you're so smart and you're so this. And, you know, you've been, even though I was terrible in school, he says, you know, you've all been had your IQ's tested. yours was the highest, but don't say anything to your sisters.

You know, this kind of thing. And I fished with him all the time. I was like inseparable with my dad. So that was also a difficult one for me, but I dealt with it a lot better because I had been through this training. And so I think that sort of just really cemented my experience with hospice that, like, this is such a perfect place for me, you know? And, you know, during that first, you know, 30 hours of training, I had my doubts.

I thought, oh my gosh, am I ever going to be? be able to actually function as a leader in this organization if I can't even get through this without being such a mess. But it was good. It was like really, really good. And now I do lots of things to honor the people that I have loved. And yeah. So it's a great organization. That's awesome. Can you tell us about how somebody who's hearing this can support it because I think that it would be valuable just to lay out a few different options on how they can support such an important part of our community. Okay, well, they can donate directly by calling us, which is 604-795-4660. You can send us a check. You can buy tickets to our 50-50 draw, which we're doing right now. It's all over social media, but you can also

call our office and buy a ticket. This first one that we're doing, if we sell all the tickets, you will get $10,000 on December 18th, just in time for Christmas, if you're the winner. And we are planning to do another one in the new year, which will be 100,000. So, yeah, so it'll be 50, 50, so they'd get $50,000. That's amazing. Yeah, so, you know, we're trying to sort of pivot the way that we do, that we do fundraising. We're not going to have our gala. We're not going to have our hoe down virtually because our brand on those events is so

fabulous. Like those events are so much fun. They're like the gala for example is glitzy. It's gorgeous. It's like being in a movie set. It's always completely done to the nines. And our volunteers love to do it, right? We didn't want to try and do something virtually because you kind of, you know, it's just not the same feeling, right? And then, you know, and then when you go back to being able to do it live, which we're hoping we will at some point. then it's kind of lost its sizzle, right? So we're just not going to touch those events. And we're trying to do other things to kind of bring the money in. So, yes, you can donate directly to us. I mean, they can go to our website that's really easy. If you put in Chilwack Hospice Society, it'll bring it up. You know, you can go to our store, which is on Evans,

if you want to donate money, if you give it to them there. If you would like to volunteer for us, we need a few more volunteers at the store because some of our, because the COVID numbers are going up again. Some of our older, really senior volunteers are going to take our stepping back for a little what we're worried about them. And we don't want to put them, like, even though we're super, super, super careful, you know, they're the most vulnerable.

So we're kind of trying to protect them. So we're trying to bring in some younger volunteers, but they can't be in high school because we don't want them right now just because of, you know, all the outbreaks in school because we have to protect the other seniors that are still there. So, yeah, it's a real, but yeah, volunteering for us is always great, you know, businesses. Another thing we thought about is, you know, for all those businesses out there that can't have Christmas parties. If you wanted to, like, donate the amount of money, it would have cost you for your Christmas party? Or maybe get your staff involved with donating to the Hospice Society.

It's so horrible having to ask people for money. That's the part I, like, leased about this job. Fair enough. Can you tell us about what the money goes towards, just so people. people, maybe it'll feel less guilty. Yeah, so it goes towards all our grief programs. So right now we are offering a traumatic loss group that's coming up, which is people who have died from overdose, accident, murder, suicide, and car accidents.

So, you know, and I mean, we're not that prescriptive about it. If someone says, well, it was very traumatic for me, that's good enough, really. And then, you know, we offer, we are also having our regular. first step grief group. We are doing a pregnancy and infant loss grief group for moms and dads who have lost babies at any point throughout the term. What else are we doing? Every week we send kids to this horse camp in Freedom Rains in Yarrow and we have sort of a partnership with her. So we send about five, six kids there. They ride horses. They enter and talk to the horses about the things that,

and they understand sort of the grief process. So they work with us on that. Once a year we do a horse whisper camp with kids, which is a whole day grief group for kids. We are trying to bring on another child and youth person so that we can do a lot more focus work with kids because they're the ones that are really getting missed out right now and we're worried about that.

Because we see, you know, the kids they act out at school, school, they're already feeling, like, so many kids who have lost parents or grandparents during this time period are afraid that everyone in their life is going to die because of COVID and they hear all this stuff, right? So they understand how death feels, maybe for the first time in their lives, you know, that they've lost someone. And then all of a sudden, you know, right now they're really struggling and we're getting a lot more call from parents and schools and things like that, that these kids are really struggling because they think now that everyone's going to die because of COVID, right? So anyways, though, you know, we're trying to bring in, we're trying to hire someone

for that job, but we just don't have the budget to do it at this time. So Jen and Lucy are sort of picking that up at this point. So they, you know, any kind of donations that we get towards that would really support bringing a new person on. Eventually, we'll be able to do a lot more fundraising and eventually we'll get smarter on how to do it virtually. It's just, you know, you try and figure out what works, what isn't working. We look at all the other sort of of community organizations who are wealthier than us, perhaps, and what they're trying and what's working for them and what isn't? Because we can't really afford to have a fail. So we're kind of trying to check out what everybody else is doing. But we have a great board, and we've got a

fundraising committee on the board, so we're working on new ideas for that. But anyways, I think I went on and on about that. No, that's so important because I do think that it's a resource that if we don't support it, we could lose it. And I think that we need to do everything we can to try and make sure that that doesn't happen. Yeah, well, I'm not going to let that happen. Awesome. Well, I'm glad that we have someone on that front to protect that. Can you tell us about what it was like to work with the Rotary Club?

Because I think everybody sees signs about Rotary Clubs, but I don't think that we understand how it works or the value of it. Okay, well, there's three Rotary Clubs in Chilwack. One meets on Friday. It's the Rotary Club of Chilwack. they are probably they used to be the largest group they have lost a number of members over the last few years and they're probably the most senior group that's the group that I currently belong to which I love I have to say that I have my husband is 21 years older than me so clearly I like

seniors so anyway but this and he was also in my rotary club but um anyways and then there's a Thursday which is the Chilliwack Mount Cheam Rotary Club they meet at 7 o'clock in the morning that's the one I was the president of, and that's where I first started in Rotary. But I am so horrible in the morning. Like, I am not a good morning person. So once my tenure as president was over, I moved to the Friday Club because they meet at Friday at lunch, which is a great way to end the week, right? And not only that, but I have a lot of really early morning meetings for City Hall already.

And, you know, if I have to be in a meeting at seven, then I have to get up at five and, like, you know, hit my head with a two by four because I am just not good in the morning. I never have been. I would stay up until two in the morning every night if I could, but I don't want to get up until 9.30. I mean, I obviously get up earlier than that now, but anyways. And then the Wednesday club also meets at lunch, and they are the Chilliwack Fraser Rotary Club. And all of the different clubs pick a project every year in order to, you know, they fundraise and they inject money into the community. And like they've done the Rotary Trail, they've done that park down the Central Park downtown, that water park thing. They did that. You know, they partner with the city.

The city brings some money in. The Rotary Club brings some money in. The Rotary Clubs, you know, they kind of stick handle the volunteers to do a lot of the work and things like that. Currently, the Thursday morning club that I used to be the president of is actually building a beautiful garden space for the Chilliwack Hospice Society. We were chosen as their project for this year. And we had this horrible area with paving stones that kids were tripping on and stuff. And I was worried we were going to lose a tooth. And they have completely redeveloped it. This coming Tuesday, actually, they're planting it. Brian Minter has also assisted them by giving, you know, a really great deal on the plants so we can double up on some of it. And that's going to be their project for the year.

And, you know, I think they do great things in the community. They are also suffering in these times. But they're, you know, I mean, the Friday Club had their book sale recently, and I think they managed to do quite well. I didn't go to that because I'm around so many seniors. I was worried that I'd pick something up that I might pass on. So I'm very careful about the things that I'm attending these days. But anyway, I mean, Rotary Clubs do amazing things.

They also have pretty much eradicated polio all over the world. So a part of what they fundraise and the dues and all the rest of it, it goes overseas and a part of it stays. So they, along with Bill Gates, actually, have been working to eradicate polio. So they're down to like hardly any cases in the world. And they've been doing that, I think, for 20 years now trying to stop polio. They also do things like they build wells in Africa. That was one of our projects from the Friday Club. They, you know, different clubs choose different things to put.

their money towards and then Rotary International, which is one of the places where you send your money, they also have projects that they do to try and make the world a better place. That's so important. It is important. It's really, really great work. And then, yeah, so that's probably enough. Wow. So being the president, what type of involvement do you have? Are you guiding some of the decisions? Yeah, well, when I was, my year as president, we did, I think we did Watson Glen Park, from what I remember. And you know, you go with the executive and they sort of they put forward ideas on projects. How much money do you have? How much money do we have coming in this year? What can we afford to do? And we worked on Watson Glen Park and it was supposed to be sort of an

interpretive thing with plantings from different parts of Canada from what I remember. Anyways, I mean, it's kind of, that's fallen by the wayside a little bit at this point. But, you know, as a rotary president, you run the meetings, you arrange for all the executive stuff. It's a big job. It's certainly a much bigger job for the bigger clubs. Like the Friday club, if you were president, and there's 200 members. And the Thursday club, there's, I don't know, about 80, I think, right? So the more members you have, the more work it is. But you arrange for the meetings, you know, you, any time, any organization I've ever worked with, if you want to be successful, if you're the president, you're just another member of the team.

Or if you're the executive director, you're another member of the team. Like, everybody works as a team to decide what your project's going to be. If you have, like, a pet project that you've always wanted to do in the community, then you can come and pitch it. But if they don't pick it, you know, you don't take your toys and go home. I mean, you know, it's, so it's a very collaborative kind of thing to make sure that you're always doing the right thing, right? You know, so the Rotary Club's, you know, act very much that way. So the, but the president is kind of the leader and the go-to person and the, you know, the complaints department quite often.

Oh, perfect. Well, I'm sure that was enjoyable. Yeah. What was it like to be a part of the Suroptimus Club? Because I didn't even know that was a thing prior to reading your bio and learning about that. And so I think that that would be great to talk about. It would be. Okay, so the Suroptimus Club is a very similar structure to the Rotary Club.

There's Suroptimus International. There's Suroptimus Western Canada. There's Suroptimus in all the different areas. And Seroptimus means best for women. Maybe not exactly the perfect quote, but I think. Anyways, but it's basically a group. It's all women. It's a group of women.

We do things like locally, Ars for Optimus Club has something that's called Heather's Hope Chest. And we have received donations and we raise money and we do all this kind of stuff. We have a couple of storage lockers in a hidden place in Chilliwack. And we take referrals from all the social service agencies for women who are aging out of care, are escaping abusive relationships, who are basically just trying to get set up. And we arrange for a time. They come, and they shop for free. They get bed, bedding, dishes, everything to get them set up.

And it's all in this little warehouse place, and they just pick and choose what they want. And we take it on a dolly and load the car. They usually come with their social worker or someone. And then they go off, and they have all this new stuff for their apartment. So that's one project that we do. We also provide bursaries for women who have dependent children that want to go back to school. So, you know, it's not a whole ton of money. I think it's about, like, say we had $5,000 put away for it because it's different every year.

But the number one choice would get $3,000 and then there'd be two runners up. We also have a Believe and Achieve Award, which is for a woman who may not have dependent children. but is, because that particular one that's sort of sponsored by Rotary International is for, we put the money in, but it's for women who have dependent children. The other one is for a woman that maybe doesn't have dependent children, but maybe she has overcome drug addiction or she's, you know, it's very subjective. And it's our own one that we created in our club because we said we don't just want women who have children. that's not necessarily fair.

Women who don't have children also have struggles. So we put together our own one for that. And I'm on the executive for the Suroptimus Club. There's not very many of us. I think there's like somewhere 22 to 25 of us or whatever. And we're having struggles these days trying to keep it together because we're meeting on Zoom and there's not the, you know, the connection with the other members.

So we're trying to figure out ways to keep it sort of together till all of this is over. But, you know, we used to do things to make money like we would go at Heritage Park during the fair and manage the parking lot and stuff like that. Like we don't, we're not really on the radar of most people, but honestly, they do some really, really great stuff. And like internationally, this is probably gross, but in a lot of countries, women are mutilated.

They are, their private parts are, have. all the stuff that makes it feel good removed and for the use of men so they, you know, won't stray or whatever the theory is. So we predict those women. We sneak them out of the country and we do all sorts of that surreptimus international. I'm not personally involved with any kind of border crossing stuff, but thank goodness. But that's one of the things they do. They rescue women in situations where they're trying to escape abuse and rape and all sorts of stuff. That's what Suroptimist International does. Well, that's so important because it's one of those topics we never talk about. And when we hear about it, it seems so crazy that it's possible. And so to

know that there is somewhere in Chilliwack that actually helps support the international work there is so valuable for us as a community to obviously make a stance against that type of behavior. Yeah, we send them money and they use our money to help with their cause. And Yeah, yeah, it's good. That's a terrific cause. You know what? I don't think anything's impossible. If the world could have elected Donald Trump as president, anything is possible in the world.

Yeah, well, we're eradicating polio on the other end of things. That's a really cool thing that the other side is on. So moving forward, can we talk a little bit about your family and what that's been like for you? Because I think that that's so important that that is the tool that I think people use to go out and do well in their career, do well in the community. is they have to go home to a place that they feel comfortable, heard, and valued. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, this is kind of, I think that, you know, probably growing up and being bullied and having low self-esteem, I mean, people always say, oh, you're like the most confident person.

Well, you know, I'm not. You know, I'm just really good at faking it. And, you know, if it's something I really believe in, then I can be passionate about it. But I, you know, my growing up family, I mean, I talked about that a little bit. I had two sisters as well. I have a younger sister and an older sister. The older sister I'm completely estranged from, and that's never going to change. But, you know, for the most part, it was good.

You know, we weren't poor. I didn't starve. You know, it was a great life. And I met my husband in the Greek Islands. He was traveling all over the world. We got married in 1989 when they wouldn't renew his visa. He came to Canada to see me. It was funny, too, because I didn't even recognize him.

When I saw him in the Greek islands, he had, like, this long, blonde, curly hair, and he was, like, so tanned. And, you know, we had spent a couple months together. And then he came to Canada, and he had his haircut, and his hair was, like, dark underneath, because he hadn't been in the sun. He'd been living in England. And anyway, so he came. He was here for nine months, and we eventually. got married, and we had two beautiful daughters together. And he has great genes. My daughters are

gorgeous and tall and whatever, although they're, you know, they have the curvy gene from mom. But they're amazing, absolutely amazing. And we were married, I guess, for six or seven years, and then we divorced. And then I moved to Chilliwack. And then I had like kind of a scare with cancer. And then he was kind of hanging around, helping with the kids and stuff. And I don't know what happened. But, you know, I figured he'd sort of figured his life out and all the rest of it. So we got back together and we actually got married again because my daughters wanted to be flower girls. It was probably the biggest reason for that. Well, if you and daddy are back together, we want to be flower girls. So anyway, that didn't last very long. And so we ended up divorcing

again. My daughters ended up with me. And I've lived, I think at one point I had moved like seven times and seven years in Chilliwack because I rented and I didn't do well financially in the divorce, even though, you know, I was the one that actually originally owned. It doesn't matter. I shouldn't even go there. But anyways, okay, we won't go there. But, you know, I struggled. I rented for several years, which always makes me laugh when people come up in front of council and they say, well, we don't want this development because there will be renters. And it's like, well, I rented for many years, so already you're kind of not... Barking up the right tree.

Yeah, you're barking up the wrong tree here. Anyway, but my girls learned early. Like, I was lucky when I first came to Chilliwack. I was making a lot of money at the telephone company at the time. And so I had a full-time live-in nanny. and she was amazing and she was cheaper than two kids in daycare. Wow. To have her.

She came from the Philippines and she was so awesome. And she would cook and clean and give the kids their best and like all that kind of stuff. So all I had to do is come home and like be with my kids and have a relationship with my kids, which was so amazing. I loved it. And I, you know, I'd go to my upstairs to my room and I'd pull out my drawer and all my underwear and my t-shirts were like in these perfect little folded, rolled up balls and, you know, everything was perfect. And her name was Harland and she was amazing. But once your kids go to school, obviously you don't qualify for the same ability to have a live-in full-time nanny.

But my kids became really independent, really early, I must say. You cook for yourself? Like, they would open the fridge and say there's nothing in here to eat. And I'd say, well, there's, you know, you know how to cook. Like, they learned how to cook at a really early age. And as when they were old enough, like, they had babysitters, but when they were old enough to stay on their own, you know, they were expected. I don't think I ever once made them lunch. That's terrible, right, to send school.

But, you know, everything they needed was there. And they're very independent women now. And so that's both good and dad because maybe they felt like they were a little bit abandoned. I was incredibly protective of my kids when they were little. Particularly, Melody had a bit of a problem when she was in grade one, I think, for grade two. I can't remember. She was at one of the local elementary schools, I won't say, because this boy was really bullying her, like really bullying her, and for the same reason, because she was a little bit junky,

and he was bugging her. And so I called the school, and I made this huge stink, and then I went there, and I said, I want this kid dealt with. I want to talk to his parents, blah, blah, blah. And they said, oh, yeah, yeah, nothing ever happened. So I have to say I'm ashamed of this before I tell you what I did. So I went to the school one day, and Melody was there, and I said, okay, which kid is it? And she said, you know, it's that kid over there, right?

And I could see he was kind of pushing the other kids around and obviously clearly the bully, right? So I wait for a little bit and I call him over to the fence. And I said, you see that girl? girl over there? And he's like, oh, yeah, fat, melody. And I, lippy little thing. And I said, if you ever, ever say one more mean thing to her ever again, and I find out about, I'm coming to get you. And I said, and you won't like that. Like, I don't care. What kind of trouble I get in? You're in big trouble, buddy. And he, you know, and he was a little bit, I don't know exactly how I, I was probably worse than I think there might even be a couple of swear words in there. But

anyways, yeah, it was bad. I could have been arrested for that. But so anyway, after that, he was good to her. That's good. Well, that's so important though. Like, no, it's wrong. No, you should deal with it through the proper avenues. I realize it's wrong. But honestly, I, because of the fact that happened so badly to me, and my mother never did anything, there was no way that was going to happen to my kids. So. But like, I even think as like a kid, you want some, like, I went through something similar and it didn't go at all my way. I was bullied and the bullier was had held a knife to me. He had, he had threatened me at the leisure center when I was just swimming. He was like, once we're done swimming, we're going to take you outside and we're going to beat everything out

of you. Yeah. And if you go tell those lifeguards, we're just going to do it after you leave. And after they've, if they kick us out, we're just going to do it after that. And so I didn't feel like I had options. And then I had told my mom and we were walking down the road with her, like my mom, And then my friend and their mom, and he was riding by, and, like, my mom was like, you're not going to do that again to my child. And he mooned us on his skateboard. And then just went away and continued to threaten me. And, like, nothing was ever fixed.

So knowing that somebody's on your side through all of it is, like, that's what you want in your life. Like, I get that there's legal ramifications, but in your life, you want someone who's going to be there no matter what. They're not going to go, well, we really can't do that because of all these very rational reasons. You want someone who's like, you know what, screw all of that. I care about you, and I've got your back, and we're ride or die.

And that's what that offers people. And I think going too far and saying, like, let's all just be super rational, we can lose that sign. They do lose it. But I just want people to know that I don't condone threatening children. But, yeah. So anyway, and as they grew up, Melody became a lot. You know, she was very, she's like me. She's a free spirit.

She was just, she didn't like school. She was totally like me. And then my other daughter, you know, I'd say, okay, I'm taking you guys out of school so that we can go. Where were we going? Cancun. We're going to Cancun with Auntie Debbie for, you know, a week. And Haley says, well, when are we going? And I said this stage, she says, well, I can't go.

I'm still in school. I can't miss school. And she was just so totally different than me. Like, she's like my sister's, you know, love school. So anyways, I have these two really amazing, totally opposite daughters. I have one that's incredibly, she lives in Vancouver with her significant other. She's very much into art and culture and expressing herself and just trying everything under the sun. And, you know, I worry more about her because, you know, she's like I was.

I could have been killed so many times with all the stupid decisions I made over the year. but I was lucky and then I have another daughter who's married and she owns a business which is Valley Pro Orthotics and it's on Vetter anyways and she's incredibly hardworking and not that they're not both hardworking but she's very logical yeah very lot but still very much fun anyway so they turned out great and and I my ex-husband now is gone from Jilalak area and I have married I guess last year a little while ago, year and a half, I guess, Norm Not, who has been a really, really wonderful friend of mine for many, many years. And he is older than me, but we have the most amazing relationship. And, you know, for the first time in my life, I feel like I have unconditional love, which is amazing. That is awesome. Can you tell us how you guys met? Well, he was in my Rotary Club. And he was in the Friday Rotary Club. And I had met him even when I was in the Thursday Rotary Club.

And, you know, he was married to someone else, and I was in other relationships. I did do a fair amount of dating over the years. I have to be truthful about that. But, um, so I was seeing someone, but he, and he was married to someone else. They laugh because they, both of us have been married three times, but for both of us, this is our third marriage. But he actually married two different women. And I married the same guy twice.

So as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't actually count. But, uh, he is an amazing guy. And he has just a heart of gold. And the most important thing I think that we have in common is, like, family is everything. Like, you know, I would protect my children until the ends of the earth. And he's like that, too. He has, there's six kids, I think there's 17 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. Oh, my gosh.

I know. So, like, a family event, we can't have family events right now because it's, like, way over the limit. But I think the first one I ever went to, there was, like, 43 immediate family members there. Oh my gosh, I can't imagine what a non-imedia family get together with that place. Yeah, but we live on a farm, which is great, and, yeah, it's pretty awesome. This is the happiest I've ever been in my entire life, and I am just very, and it's been, you know, I mean, it's been a tough go because we got engaged and then...

How did that happen? Well, we had been dating for a while, and then we were going out. on a friend and I came home with my friend Danielle and you know just said oh Daniel wants to catch a ride with us we're going over to this thing and and then he like gets it down to my knee and proposes and Daniel's going well she had a few words to say that I won't repeat but what are you doing you know and she's and I'm like you know go outside or something you know because it was like kind of one of those private moments but anyways yeah we got engaged and then we got married on April 20th, which is the pot day. We didn't even think about that, but we got married on

Pot Day in 2019. Yeah. And we just had our one-year anniversary. But, you know, we got engaged, I guess, in October, and then Christmas Eve, I found out I had breast cancer. Oh, no. Yeah. Big, what happened? Well, it was, and I can remember saying to one of his daughters, like, he did not sign up for this. Like this is, you know, I don't know whether I would have gone down this whole road of getting married and all the rest of it if I had known, right? Well, um, I had, I had surgery on February 12th of that year. Sorry, what was the diagnosis? Like, what was that process like? Oh, it was awful. It was absolutely, I found out on Christmas Eve. And I'm like, my doctor said, I hate to do this on Christmas Eve, but, you know, and you need to know this. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, and it was very

emotional and I think I was probably the most scared I've ever been in my entire life, because, you know, my life is just so wonderful right now. And then, you know, some bird flew over and took a big shit on it, pardon me. But, yeah. And so in, I guess in January, I don't know, I had, I mean, I can't remember if I'd had the biopsy before that or the biopsy came in January and then I, February 12th, I had surgery, and they took out two big tumors, and then they leave you to sort of heal up a little bit. And then you go back to the doctor, and they tell you what, like what you should, what kind of treatment you need to have. And they told me I needed to have chemo and radiation. And I said, well, you know, if I had chemo, you know, what are the

chances. And they said, well, that would give you a 1% better chance of being alive in 10 years if you have chemo. And the radiation gave me way more than that, plus the fact that they had removed it and all the rest of it. So I was up to like a, I don't know, 85% chance I'd be alive in 10 years. And it was going to give me 86% if I had chemo. And I said, so no chemo. I won't be doing chemo, which I may end up regretting one day. But anyways, so I went and had radiation and you have to do that every day for, except for weekends, for 30 sessions in a row. It's exhausting, unbelievably exhausting. And it burns your skin to the point where it gets to be like hamburger meat. It's really gross. And, you know, when you're done with it, everything sort of

looks normal and then within about six months all that skin that's been radiated contracts and becomes hard as a rock and the thing on you know the left side of your body that you used to know is look like a normal boob now is kind of just shriveled up into this horrible nastiness so i mean that's what you're left with and then now i go for mammograms every six months and ultrasounds i just had one a little while ago, and now I have to go for an ultrasound because they see all sorts of things because they just do. So now I need follow up. So I don't know whether I'm done with it or whether I'm not. Every night when you go to bed in the beginning particularly, it's the last thing you think about, and it's probably the first thing you think about when you wake up. Wow, I cannot

imagine. Yeah. So that has been my first year of marriage. And so we went through all that. Plus, we did a renovation on the house, and we're still together. So I think we're solid. Yeah. That sounds like you've been through a lot together already. Yeah, I think we're solid. But yeah, you know, I kind of live in fear. I'm not a grandma yet for my own kids.

I've spent so much of my life working two jobs and sort of doing things for other people that I've sort of come to the point now. Like, I mean, this isn't news. Most people know this anyways, but I won't be right. running for council again. Yeah. After 14 years, I've decided that, you know, if I have five years of life left, who knows, right? Yeah.

Then I want to spend that time with my kids and my husband. I want to do a little traveling if I can once they allow travel again. You know, it'll be the first time in 40 years that I haven't worked two jobs. Yeah. Wow. You know, right? So we're just so lucky to have you here and doing the work that you're doing. like that's just that just speaks to everything that you've done for our community and all the work

and all the meetings and all the times that we haven't been able to thank you for that we're we're so lucky to have you to choose to continue to have viewed this as like your service to the community like some people never look at the world as if they could do something for somebody else and you've devoted most of your life to trying to support your children to support your community to support your family, to try and help everybody else do better. And I just think that that's such a great part of the story. Yeah, but I'm

certainly not perfect. Yes. No, I'm definitely not trying to push anyone's perfect. You know, I have my issues. I smoked for 40 years. I got in lots of trouble. I, you know, I used to, I worked at one time as a go-go dancer for a band. And, you know, another time pumping gas

at Killers Cove Marina. I mean, I've done, you know, I've done everything I've done has been a great experience for me, too. Yeah. You know, I'm not that. Nobody is that perfect that they, you know, are so altruistic at the world. But honestly, no, it's been a good ride.

But I want to spend, you know, and I also think the fact, too, you know, my husband's older. And, you know, I was lucky enough to kind of have this opportunity with him quite a bit later in life. But I want to have as much time as I can with him. And his family has been very accepting. me. They're really wonderful. And, you know, some of them, of course, I know because most of his children are my age. So it's, uh, you know, one of his daughters was a good friend of mine for many years. So yeah, it's a bit, it's a bit of a weird dynamic, but we all seem to be getting long great. So that's good. Well, that's awesome. Can you tell us about some of your

favorite places in Chilliwack, some places you like to eat or some people that you work with that you've enjoyed being around? Yes, I don't, I want to make sure I don't miss. anybody because I did kind of put together a list of people that okay so these are my favorite businesses the button box Jeannie and I've just always loved that place because it's it's I think it's extremely well shopped for like she has little things and expensive things she has some very you know some fairly expensive things in there she's got some beautiful things for babies I used to buy all my hats there because I love hats. I wear a lot of hats in the wintertime and I have hats galore. I have a lot of shoes too,

which I used to buy at the other store next door. So I love the button box. I also love Cornerstone framing because it's my friend Krista Butt and she is such an amazing human being and makes me laugh all the time and she does exceptional work. And of course I do a lot of framing because I, you know, I mean I paint. I'm a watercolor painter. I do acrylics. I do like all, I do all sorts of art projects and things. And, you know, so I've worked with her a bit on that. And she is awesome. Minder Country Gardens has been a huge supporter for the Hospice Society and for this

most recent project that we've been working on. And I think Brian Minter is probably the hardest working person I know. I'm hoping to have him on. Oh, you would be so, he's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. You won't get him for three hours, though. I guarantee you he's on a schedule.

Frankies and Earls Raphael Iiello he has I want to say first of all I love Earls I used to hanging out there all the time actually way too much I usually had to go home in a cab and always we had lots and lots of fun there over the years but he is so generous to community organizations and he doesn't like any kind of recognition for it like he doesn't talk about it a lot he's he's just really really really awesome. He supports all sorts of community organizations, including the Hospice Society, and he is just a great guy. Kelmore is another one, the Kirknesses. They also don't like to get a lot of recognition, and hopefully they won't be mad that I've mentioned them, but they have really helped out the Hospice Society and have done, I mean, they've given us river rocks. We did a beautiful garden with flowers in it, and that was from Kelmore. They've also got other businesses, Western Explosives, and they have been financially supportive. of the hospice society, emotionally supportive when we've had difficult times and things like that

with suggestions and things, and they're just awesome. Okay. And also, Amel Anderson and Jerry Ends contracting, they're very community supportive. And that would be, you know, Jerry ends. And, of course, I won't be able to remember his name now that I'm trying to do it, the guy. Oh, I can't remember. Anyway, it doesn't matter. he's the guy owns it uh they're amazing um home hardware is the last one on my list and that's jeff fortin who is like the sweetest guy have you ever met him no oh he is like such a nice community guy he is helpful to everyone he used to get really involved in the car show but he's also done things to help hospice and they've supported us but more i think when i've been

going through difficult times running into him on the street and i mean when i got my breast cancer I actually put it in the paper because I thought people are going to say, you know, because of all the trolls and all that kind of stuff, oh, yeah, she's in rehab or, you know, she's in the, you know, and I thought, I don't want that. I just want to get out in front of it. I'm just going to be totally awesome and honest about it and say, you know what? I'm scared to death, but this is what's going on in my life. And so if I'm missing from action for a while, that's why. And, you know, he would be the first one to say, hey, I read, I read about you in the paper, how you doing?

You know, and just a super, super nice guy. So if you can give your business to them, I would say you're dealing with a great person and a great family. Yes, Len had mentioned him from the Royal Hotel and trying to get the piano out and operating. And I guess Fortans and Home Hardware really supported that. Yeah. They're just decent. Yeah. Decent people. Where do you like to eat in Chilac?

Where do I like to eat? Well, I like to eat at home these days because my husband cooks for me. But, I mean, I love Earls. I like Frankie's. Not as much, because I try and stay away from the carbs, and there's lots of pasta there. But they do have, obviously, other things. Oh, Hannah Sushi. I love sushi.

I also love Tokyo Grill, which is now in the Royal Hotel. Love that place. Love it. And the lady who runs it, I forgot. I think her name is Margaret or something. anyway, super, super sweet. And she really loves my oldest daughter, which, of course, anybody who loves my children

gets like two extra points. Yes, can you tell us a little bit about a bit more about the orthotics work that your daughter does? Oh, okay, yeah. Haley graduated from university and she has social degree of some sort. I've forgotten what it's called.

Of course not being a person that really loves school that much. Anyways, she started working there, and then the person who owned it decided that, you know, they want to get out of the business. So she went online, and she did all this training to be a authoritarianist, and then, I hope I'm saying that right, and then she went down to Oklahoma to a place down there where you had to do like two weeks or three weeks of actual practicum stuff, and then there's all this different, she goes through all this different licenses. She got her license to make orthotics and to look at people's feet. And her husband is doing, like, knee braces. And I think they're going to get into foot care coming up in the next little while, too. But, yeah, they're a young couple.

She's totally into customer service. And very, very sweet, my daughter, Haley, and loving. Where did the passion come from for working with people's feet? because obviously we I don't think there's any passion. I think, you know, Haley is very, she is very logical about things and, you know, this opportunity to own a business and, you know, she doesn't mind people, she used to rub my feet all the time for me. So she's never really hated feet. And, you know, she found out how she would have to become licensed and she thought it was interesting. And, you know, I don't think she, I think she has a passion for customer service and, and doing a really good job.

But so I think she would have succeeded in any business that she went into. but this just so happened to be the thing and now she like really loves it so i don't know whether that answers your question i mean i think she has a passion for it now but i don't think she woke up one morning and said i want to look after people's feet i mean there's not too many of us that you know yes i'll go directly to feet yeah that's fair but uh yeah no she's like really good at it and yeah that's awesome so i think the best way to end this off is to get your idea on some of your favorite artists because I think that the value in that

is that we wake people up to some of the local art, but maybe just some artists that you've really enjoyed. Okay, well, Cassandra Unger is Eldon Unger's daughter. Have you ever heard of Eldon? He used to be quite a mover in Shakerd Town.

And I went to a showing that she had one time and I just love her stuff. And you can look it up. It's Chrysanda Cassandra Unger, and it used to be Newsteader, but she, I guess, divorced, and now she's gone back to Unger. So I have several of her pieces in my house, so she's one of my favorites. I really love money. I don't know.

I mean, I really love all different kinds of art, but I'm, it's kind of like, if you came into my house, you would say, oh, my gosh, color threw up in here. Like, I love colorful, bright things in what I wear and in the art that I pick. And so I tend to pick artists that are really colorful. I like the group of seven artists, but there's also an artist out in the Cultus Lake area. And I've forgotten who they are. Jackie Simpson used to carry a lot of this person's work in her studio. But I can't remember what the name is. But I don't know.

I mean, I just love all sorts of things that are crazy and funky. If you want, I'll send you some pictures of some of the stuff that, like, I do things like I took an old, they call it a gin cupboard, and it's, and that to me is art too, right? So it's a piece of old furniture, and it's kind of, you know, I like to restore things that are old if they're in good shape, but, you know, it's kind of beaten up or whatever, and it's one of those ones that kind of has the bumps on the front and the glass, and, you know, you open the door and it's got glass shelves. You've probably seen them before, you know, the kind of turn.

feet, whatever. And I did a thing where I painted it like bright, smarty blue, and then I do mod-podge on the back of the backing of it, like really bright floral fabric. And it's like wildly bright and blue and wild colors. And that's the kind of art I like. I like things that are interesting and different and bright and things that make me feel happy. That's what I gravitate towards. But I also, I like art that makes me sink too. But, you know, as far as artists go, I don't know. Like Van Gogh a little bit, but, you know, a little weird sometimes, too. I love the irises, but then there's other pieces that I'm not that crazy about.

I love, I was looking at one the other day and I can't remember. I don't really pay attention to details, like as far as names and stuff go. Yeah. Just anything that pulls you in? Yeah, that anything that pulls me in, I'm very interested in. Well, I just want to say that I know you're not perfect, but I'm so grateful to have had you on. Oh, thank you. I think that you've been through so much.

You've faced adversity. You took this point in time where you were losing important people in your life. And then you got involved in the very place that helps people process that. Now you're leading that. You're involved in our... Yes. And we're so lucky to have people who approach things that way because we miss out on opportunities when we're going through something tough and we don't face it.

We miss out on that opportunity to grow and contribute to the community. And so I just want to thank you for all your years of service. this, and you're an incredibly strong person. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me.