Four Nanaimoites honoured for contributions to community

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At a ceremony at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre Thursday, Laurie Grubb, Joshua Waltman, Amanda Hall, and Peter Sinclair were presented with the King Charles the third coronation medal.

Last May it was announced that 30 thousand such medals would be awarded across Canada to individuals who have made a significant contribution to their country, province, region, or community.

Midcoast Morning hears from each of the recipients, to learn more about the impact they’ve made on Nanaimo.

Transcript:

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Hello and welcome to Midcoast Morning, I'm Joe Pugh. Four Nanaimoites have been recognized for their contributions to the community. At a ceremony at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre Thursday, Laurie Grubb, Joshua Waltman, Amanda Hall and Peter Sinclair were presented with the King Charles III Coronation Medal.
Last May, it was announced that 30, 000 such medals would be awarded across Canada to individuals who have made a significant contribution to their country, province, region, or community. Today on the show, we'll hear from each of the recipients. And learn more about the impact they've made on Nanaimo.
Laurie Grubb is President of the Royal Canadian Legion, Mount Benson Branch 256. I spoke with her ahead of the ceremony on Thursday. And we're here in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. The event hasn't happened, it's about to begin. honour?
Well, the honor came by telephone and I'm going to try not to cry because every time I talk about it, I cry.
I got a phone call from Sheila Malcolmson on my cell phone, uh, telling me last week that I was going to be presented the King's Coronation Medal and I was totally honored and feeling totally unworthy and cried my eyes out on the phone and everybody I told that day afterwards, I cried all over again.
Can you tell me, so you're the president of the Legion. What goes on at the Legion on a kind of a month to month, day to day, year to year basis?
Oh my goodness, so much. We're very heavily involved in our community here locally. Very dedicated to helping our veterans in any way that we possibly can. And their families.
Um, we hold different functions at the Legion for veterans and, and the public to come into. We are actually open to the public now, so anyone can come in.
And could you tell me a little bit about the, the veteran community here in Nanaimo and in the Mid Island?
Our membership right now is about 360 members.
Not all of them are veterans. But those that are, um, associated with a veteran or believe in our cause and what we're doing for the veterans, um, we do hold every month we hold a veteran's lunch and veterans come in from all locals here around, um, for a free lunch and they're allowed to bring in their, their partners or family member along with them and.
Yeah, so we do what we can. We hold big functions for remember to stay at the Legion itself and down at the cenotaph downtown. November the 11th. We try to remember every anniversary of the different wars around town and have ceremonies. We have some Somebody that's in charge of that. We are all volunteers.
There is no one in our branch that has paid. It's totally run. We're the biggest branch in Nanaimo, um, and it's totally run by volunteers.
How have things evolved at the Legion and legions in general, maybe in the years as you know, the first and the second world wars each year get a little further away from living memory?
Well, in, in my belief, yes, we are losing a lot of our veterans on a daily basis. Um, we have one veteran right now who is 105 years old and celebrates his birthday on Remembrance Day, actually. Um, our actual veterans themselves, they're dying off. That's why I believe the Legion opened it up to our CMP and our first responders as becoming full members.
Um, like I said already that we're open to the public where it's not just members, you don't have to have a membership to come into the Legion and participate in any of the events that we do have. But yes, our veterans are dying off, the veterans themselves, that community is becoming smaller and smaller.
What would you suggest to members of the public who are maybe curious about the legion? You've mentioned a few times that anyone can sort of get involved and, and volunteer. What are some of the things that you might need help with?
Everything. From, from working the grounds, keeping our property in prime shape.
We have some very elderly people out there doing it currently. We have, uh, house volunteers that take care of any repairs that are done in the house. Our legion itself is very old. We got our charter in 1958. Um, so it's a very old building. So there's that. There's bartenders. Um, we pay for anybody who's interested in doing bartending to get their serving right.
We have full kitchen facilities. Um, we pay for people who want to get their food safe in there. I currently manage the kitchen too and have for, I want to say, four and a half years. We do a lot of celebrations of life. We do weddings. Um, other Vancouver Island Health rents our facility and occasionally want a lunch.
So it's all volunteers served. There's something for everybody. Whatever your interests are. Yeah, we'll take you and, and, and try and put you in that area.
And certainly out in the community every now and then I hear people talking about like, let's go to the Legion for some, something like a music bingo or whatever.
Uh, how is that experience? Is it different from just like a normal bar? Like, what's the situation with the Legion kind of restaurant bar?
Well, our lounge holds, I'll give you an example, Wednesdays is our first opening at 4 o'clock, and it's called, um, Games Night. So, we have dart players that come in to play darts.
We have card players that come in to play Canasta. We have, um, uh, uh, uh, crib that comes in and plays on a Wednesday night. Currently, we've now got a knitting group that comes in and sits there and knits and orders a drink or gets something to eat from the pub. Thursdays is our, Thursdays is our entertainment night.
We have local entertainment comes in and plays in the lounge every Thursday. It's also our pint and a pound night. So you can come in and get a pound of wings and a beer for very low price. As a member too, you get a discount on those prices. Friday night is our Friday night dinner special. Every Friday we have a different dinner available to the public.
We also play music poker. We don't play music trivia. We play music poker and it's a fun event. You get a card and a bingo dabber and they play a song. And if you've got that song on your card, you dab it. And as soon as you get a line, you yell poker. Um, small little prizes are given like legion bucks that you can use to buy something.
Saturday nights is our meat draw. Saturday afternoon, pardon me, that starts at one o'clock. Um, the lounge opens at noon. Um, you can come in and. Hopefully win some meat. So yeah, that's what's going on at the Legion. There's always something going on Wednesday to set through to Saturday.
Is there anything else you think it's important folks know about the Legion or the work it does in the community?
Well, I think most importantly, Remembrance Day comes up once a year on November the 11th. I think it's very important to remember all of those days, not just on Remembrance Day, of all the People that have passed on, that have served this country to keep us all safe so that you and I can sit and talk today remembering them all the time, not just on Remembrance Day.
Laurie, congratulations again on the honour and I look forward to seeing you again in a few minutes. Thank you very much. Lori Grub, president of the Royal Canadian Legion Mount Benson Branch 2 5 6. Speaking with me at the Vancouver Island Conference Center on Thursday, grub was one of four Nanaimo whites receiving a King Charles III coronation medal for their contributions.
Also receiving the award Thursday was Constable Joshua Waltman. He's Nanaimo's first RCMP Mental Health Liaison Officer. Together with a mental health nurse, Waltman works in a program called CAR 54, in partnership with Island Health. I spoke with him ahead of the ceremony.
My name is Josh Waltman and I have the privilege of being the Nanaimo RCMP Mental Health Liaison Officer.
And can you tell me how you found out you were about to, uh, to receive this award?
Yeah, I received a phone call from Minister Sheila Malcolmson and she notified me, uh, the day before I was going on vacation. So, quickly put together a list of things People who were interested in, or who I'd like to have come.
And here we are today, uh, incredibly humbled to be not just considered, but actually shortlisted and then, uh, today to be presented with one.
And can you tell me a little bit about the work that has led to this today?
Yeah. So, um, I'm one of three, uh, founding members of project happy feet, nine, one, one. So we go every last Friday of the month and the handouts show up.
new or gently used, uh, shoes to anybody who may need them. No questions asked. Uh, I'm also, uh, the first, uh, full time mental health liaison officer for Nanaimo detachment. And although I'm here accepting the, uh, award today, it is definitely not lost on me that it was not just me who brought the award.
this program together. There's lots of other people, uh, including the nine most senior management and, uh, my supervisors who were super flexible that allowed this full time crisis car and partnership with Island Health to come together so quick.
And can you tell me what have you seen from your time working in the crisis car so far?
Do you know what it's incredibly rewarding with working with community members and outside agencies to see positive health outcomes, uh, and reduce calls for service to the police as a result. Um, so to work parallel with another agency to ensure that that happens is absolutely incredible. Our number one goal is to, uh, support people in the community, leave them in the community, uh, in the comfort of their homes with their loved ones.
And then when that fails, we work with the health authority, uh, or Island Health to Ends Come up with a plan to to provide them with a little bit of support and then guess more support in the hospital to stabilize and then start over again.
And certainly I know for the last number of years, it's been a bit of a controversial topic of police responses to.
Mental health or like wellness checks. How is this a different situation than that?
Honestly, I don't really focus on the negative. For me, it's a program for the last two years that's worked really well. We've seen lots of positive from it. You see people who are out Not in the best moment of their life currently.
And then you get them a bit of help and there's, you can literally see that sigh of relief from them afterwards. So, uh, navigating through the police system and navigating through the Island health system is just something we assist people with. And it's just, there's so many stories, too many to. Too many to speak about.
And obviously we want to respect people's privacy as well. Um, so yeah, it's just for me when I got into policing, this is not something that I thought I would be interested in at first, but I've definitely been here almost four years in this position. And I don't have any plans on going anywhere right now.
Uh, outside of this program. So I really am enjoying it. Uh, there's always new challenges and new people and different agencies to network with. And, uh, just, it's an absolutely incredibly rewarding job.
What's the capacity? Like how busy does this keep you? Do you, do you feel like you mentioned, you know, this is almost a pilot.
It's the first one. Is there room for, for more right now?
I guess just to clarify, so we're the first full time RCMP crisis car on Vancouver Island. For the RCMP, Victoria's had a program for a very long time. So, um, and there's been programs in the Lower Mainland that have been around for a long time. So we're just, for Nanaimo, we're the first one.
We find there's usually not enough time in the day to get our daily tasks done, for sure. There's definitely, um, No shortage of things to do right now, that's for sure.
What does it mean to, to be getting this?
Again, this is just a, uh, you know, although I'm the one that's up here accepting this award today, I guess this is one tangible measure of success, and although it's falling on me right now, I'm comfortable knowing that this is a sustainable program now.
Where I could step out if I wanted to and the next person could step in and come up with fresh new ideas and run with the program and we would still have a nurse working with us and together with the police. And so this is a sustainable program that I hope would be here for a very long time. And I can step out knowing that.
The next constable will come in and do just as good a job as me, if not better, and carry on with, uh, helping people in the community.
Is there anything else you think people in the community need to know about maybe this program?
Just that if, if, if anybody is struggling or looking for a little bit of help, it's always there, whether it's through the Vancouver Island Crisis Line, uh, or if it's a Crisis, uh, 911, you can always reach out for help, because it's always there.
Well, congratulations again, and looking forward to see you get the honour.
Thank you very much.
Constable Joshua Waltman speaking with me ahead of receiving the King Charles III Coronation Medal in Nanaimo on Thursday. Waltman was one of four recipients that we're profiling on today's show.
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Today on the program we're hearing from four Nanaimo Whites who are recognized. Thursday for their contributions to the community. Lori Grubb, Joshua Waltman, Amanda Hall, and Peter Sinclair were presented with the King Charles III Coronation Medal in a ceremony at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre.
Amanda Hall is a member of BC People First Society. Where she volunteers as a membership and self advocate liaison informed by her lived experience with Williams Syndrome. I caught up with her moments before the ceremony.
Um, I couldn't have done this without my mom. She passed away this year but, um, it's going to be good.
Yeah, how are you feeling? So we're literally a couple of minutes before the, the ceremony. Uh, what was it like when you found out that you were going to be getting this award?
Really exciting.
And what would you like to, to share with people about, you know, the work you do and getting this award? What do you think the, the community needs to know?
Um, the community needs to know I am a self advocate of Nanaimo. I've been doing this for a long time and I couldn't have done it without her. Without my mom.
What kind of things are you, uh, looking to advocate for and bring awareness to? What, what do you want more people to know?
Treating people with diverse views, with more respect and everything.
Thank you so much for taking the time and congratulations again.
Thank you.
Amanda Hall is a member of BC People First Society where she volunteers as a membership and self advocate liaison. I had to let her go because the ceremony was literally getting started right then. Here's Rita Hall introducing Amanda Hall during that ceremony.
Amanda
is a mentor and a role model. She also traveled to Vancouver to train at a welcome workshop. Presenters, uh, provincially, um, on how to support, um, people to make them feel welcome and supported when they're feeling overwhelmed. In addition to her paid work with Community Living BC, Amanda has achieved so much.
Amanda volunteered, um, on Community of BC's Community Council for over six years to work on community projects to build inclusion and belonging for people with diverse abilities. Amanda plays a significant role with BC People First, a self advocacy group supporting the rights of people with diverse ability, diverse abilities, and recently presented at the Inclusion BC Conference, um, on wall writing.
Amanda balances multiple jobs, from delivering newspapers, working at HomeSense, um, as well as Johnny, Jolly Giant Childcare, is that how you say it? Um, Amanda, your, your hard work and dedication is truly inspirational. Amanda's family is asking to also share a few words on their behalf. Amanda, your family wants you to know that you have done amazing things, including working on your health, uh, including recently competing in the Special Olympics weightlift competition.
You have shown tremendous growth in your independence and currently hold three jobs. You're very, very sociable and are not afraid to introduce yourself to new people. You know yourself well and will advocate for things that you need and will advocate for others. Many of you, um, may have known Wendy Paul, Amanda's mom, who recently passed away, as Hatham mentioned.
Wendy encouraged Amanda to stand up for her rights and supported you in everything that you did, Amanda. And the result of that dedication are reflected in the medal that you are being nominated for today. And if Wendy were here, as Catherine mentioned, she would have written a beautiful poem that represented this special celebration.
So, I'd love to now introduce you to the wonderful Amanda Hall.
Thank you for this award. I couldn't have done this without my mom. Helping me reach my goals and dreams. Done wouldn't without coming up and thank friends I strong and. And I also want to
thank Frida Kahlo for working with me at Slow Kitchen.
For those of you who know him, in order to get him to acknowledge anything that he does, you have to make him a surprise.
Um, any recognition for his work whatsoever. We've dropped on him, so thanks. Thanks for coming.
Peter,
the executive director of Milton Fisherson Bay, started the second ever food recovery program in D. C. in 2012. In 2011, 800, 000 worth of food, good food, went out free of charge to people in need in the night room.
Fast forward to last year, and that was 90 million worth of good food. And 44 communities, including
15 indigenous communities, all served completely free of charge. He did this by making a bold move in 2012 and making a lot of people very upset when he stopped buying milk. He was spending 10, 000 a month on milk. And it was a sub cost, and there wasn't enough in the way. So we took that money and we bought the first refrigerated truck instead.
Went to 30 units down at that part place, and started taking absolutely everything they were throwing away, regardless of quality. That is how, to this day, we are now having 35 grocery store partners across Vancouver Island completely diverting food waste. To its highest and best use of giving food to people in need, and the food that isn't good going to farmers, free of charge to the Livestock Compromise.
Following the ceremony, I caught up with Peter Sinclair. How did you find out you were going to get this on?
Uh, Sheila Malcolmson phoned me, I think it was a Saturday morning. Uh, and let me know, it was probably two weeks ago, and so yeah, it was, it was a surprise.
And we heard, uh, during the ceremony that you can be sometimes reluctant to, uh, be recognized with an award like this.
How does it feel?
Well, I feel honored, uh, but at the same time I recognize that there are a lot of other people Uh, who make Loaves and Fishes a success, and I'm just one small part of that. And so, my reluctance in accepting award is in part because it really needs to go to a whole group of people and, and not me, so.
And could you tell me about some of the initiatives Loaves and Fishes is working on right now?
The big initiative that we are working on is to build our new warehouse. We are anticipating a building permit from the City of Nanaimo any day now. We're working very closely with the federal government to get the final 7.
2 million dollars that we need to fund this project. So that is Sort of the biggest thing that operates, or the biggest thing taking up my time now is making that project a reality. That project will enable us to recover more food and serve more people across Vancouver Island. I mean, for people living in Nanaimo, uh, they're well aware of the work that Loaves and Fishes does here in Nanaimo, but many people don't know the reach that we have.
Uh, we're going to the North Island weekly, monthly we're out to places like Tassus, Gold River and Zabalas. Uh, we are providing food to over a hundred other non profits, uh, community groups and indigenous communities across Vancouver Island. And that is because we see that there is an abundance of food out there, you just need the infrastructure and systems in place to actually get that food to the people in need.
And that's what we're committed to doing.
And we heard during your introduction to today's ceremony that a big part of your work was maybe making some difficult decisions in terms of where you were going to put resources to build future capacity at the cost of, you know, what you would be able to distribute this week.
Could you tell me about that process and is that still something that's going on?
Yeah, I mean, uh, leadership is fundamentally about hiring the right people and making tough decisions. When you make tough decisions, um, sometimes you're going to get it wrong and you need to own that. Uh, but hopefully you get it right more than you do, uh, than you get it wrong.
Making those tough decisions Uh, it really means that you're, you're gonna take a chance, but in taking that chance, it's calculated, and, uh, I think, you know, you can look at the results that Loaves and Fishes has, has achieved, and it's, it's because we've been willing to do things differently. Uh, and I firmly believe that if you're just repeating the status quo over and over again, things aren't going to get better.
Uh, and so you need to be bold, try new things, uh, and you either win when you make those decisions or you learn something. Uh, and so, uh, hopefully you have a good combination of winning and learning and, uh, you can grow from that and, and do even bigger things, uh, with your organization.
What are the ways that people in the community could help out Loaves and Fishes if they're interested right now?
Uh, the single biggest thing that people can do is go to our website and sign up for a volunteer shift. We have literally hundreds of volunteer shifts every week that go unfilled. And what that means is good food does not get sorted and instead gets composted or in a worst case scenario thrown out, which means that good food is not in the hands of people.
So if people want to help out, go to our website, sign up for a volunteer shift, come out, try it once. Um, I bet you'll like it and uh, you'll be back for more, but the website makes it easy. Uh, you can see the shifts when they are, where they are and what you'd be doing and you can sign up online.
Anything else you'd like to let the community know about your work?
Uh, I'm just thankful for the opportunity, uh, to be involved with Loaves Fishes, and, uh, I'm, I'm pleased for, for the many people that make it happen.
Well, Peter, congratulations, and thank you very much again for taking the time to speak with me.
Thank you.
Peter Sinclair is Executive Director of Loaves Fishes Community Food Bank.
We were speaking Thursday at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, where he was one of four people being recognized with the King Charles Award.
That's our show for the day, thank you for joining me. I'm Joe Pugh, host and producer of Midcoast Mourning, Jesse Woodward is our executive producer, and Arby Frew is our technical advisor. You can sign up for CHLY's newsletter at chly. ca slash subscribe for updates. Dates from our nonprofit newsroom and more.
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