CITIZEN 300
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Volunteers with the Prince George Council of Seniors begin loading 218 Christmas hampers to be delivered on Monday at The Citizen's office.
Seniors Christmas hamper program delivers
Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
Thanks to the Prince George Council of Seniors, 218 hampers went out into the community Monday to provide a brighter Christmas to those in need.
The Prince George Citizen partnered with the Council of Seniors on the project for the first time, taking in food donations at the office and proving space for storage and distribution, while the council handled the cash donations.
Fortunately the project ended with a small surplus of food donations, which will be donated to downtown agencies that offer food bank services year round.
As the food donations were brought into the Citizen office, staff happily accepted the donations and placed them
on a dolly behind the front counter.
Once the dolly was full, it was wheeled back to palettes in a back room organized by categories of food and dry goods.
This continued for about five weeks where some of the stacks of cans were almost as tall as the volunteers.
When the food drive ended on Dec. 11, volunteers from the council of seniors took over the organization and sorting and then the creation of hampers began over six days until the big delivery day Monday, when about 50 volunteers converged on the Citizen’s loading bay to take the hampers to those seniors in need. It only took about two hours to complete the deliveries.
Ruth and Mitch Olineck delivered to the seniors complex at 1010 Liard when they volunteered last year and delivered to others this year. The pair were in the
line up waiting for their hampers along with about 30 other volunteers Monday morning.
“People were so excited when we brought their hampers,” said Ruth, who also supports St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Salvation Army.
“For me it was kind of emotional to tell the truth. And afterwards we left there so grateful for what we had and kind of sad because it hits home and you just feel like it’s not enough. Sometimes it can be overwhelming but if you do a little bit and do what you can do and if everyone does a little bit, it makes a big difference.”
Except for about a week where food donations were down a bit and she was worried, this year’s campaign went very well, said Lola Dawn Fennell, manager for the Prince George Council of Seniors.
— see ‘IT TAKES, page 2
www.pgcitizen.ca
Missing
couple
found alive
Citizen staff
A couple was found on a rural road Monday after they were out of contact with family and friends for 36 hours.
A man and woman, both 23, left a Prince George home Saturday night around 9:30 p.m. on their way home to Vanderhoof using back roads instead of Highway 16.
“They never arrived,” said Cpl. Craig Douglass in a press release Saturday.
Prince George RCMP got notice from Vander-hoof police Sunday and called in local search and rescue teams to start at 6 a.m. Monday.
By Monday afternoon, after combined efforts of more than 30 searchers, two fixed-winged aircraft and a helicopter, searchers got a call from one of the missing people using a satellite phone.
“They were on the Batnuni Forest Service Road, significantly south of where they should have been,” said Douglass in the release.
“A truck driver located them with vehicle trouble last night and took them to a nearby camp for the night.”
Prince George Search and Rescue said the pair were found in “good condition” around 12:30 p.m. after their truck became stuck while driving the back roads from Prince George to Vanderhoof.
Combined search teams from Prince George, Vanderhoof, Nechako Valley and Quesnel spent the morning “patrolling remote roads between the two communities all morning and into the afternoon,” the RCMP release said.
Dale Bull, information officer with Prince George SAR, said people should stay off the remote roads.
“If you don’t have to use them, don’t,” he said.
“It’s always safer. If you have to go into a more remote area... make sure you stay with your vehicle, make sure you’re visible from both the ground and the air and make sure you stay there.”
In those cases it’s always ideal to have a way to communicate, like a satellite phone, if you’re going out of cell service.
“If not make sure there’s a good trip plan, someone knows where you’re going and someone knows when you’re supposed to be back,”
Bull said.
Prince George RCMP asks the public to drive cautiously in the winter, especially on remote roads.
“Extra supplies including water, food, a first aid kit, warm clothes, a flashlight and a fire source should accompany everyone on a trip. Please drive main routes whenever possible,” Douglass said.
No new gov’t effort to protect wildlife, habitat
Gordon HOEKSTRA Vancouver Sun
The B.C. government will not be changing laws or considering hiring more staff as recommended in a report by one of its own MLAs on how to protect wildlife and biodiversity from the effects of resource industries.
Hunting and fishing organizations including the 42,000-member B.C. Wildlife Federation made a call in the fall of 2014 - following the catastrophic Mount Polley Mine tailings dam failure - for the Liberal government to retake control of resource extraction practices, planning and oversight.
The groups said the government’s move in the past decade to rely on professionals hired by industry to make decisions on the land base, with little government oversight, had failed.
— see ‘ARE WE, page 2
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