Dear Brentwoodians,
I am writing this month’s column from the cashier cage of a casino in the wee hours of the morning, where I am working to help my son’s school raise much-needed funds for all those “extras” that are nonetheless important and necessary to ensure that the students receive the best education and experience the school and its staff can offer. In a perfect world, maybe better funding models would mean that people wouldn’t have to stay up until 4 in the morning exchanging chips and counting money to help provide resources to the organizations that we care about and benefit from; but in the real world, a few casino shifts a year can take the place of an awful lot of bottle drives and door-to-door chocolate sales (although these are an important part of fundraising efforts as well). Charities, school groups, and sports leagues depend to a great extent on the willingness of us all to do our part and help out – and so does the Brentwood Community Association, which will be staffing Elbow River Casinos on November 9 and 10. If you make use of the programs offered by the BCA, please see the notice in this issue and get in touch with the office to see if there are shifts available, or sign up as an alternate.
This spirit of volunteerism and caring about ourselves, our neighbours, and our communities, is also what should motivate us all to take the necessary steps to help put an end to the COVID pandemic which continues to disrupt our health, our work, our kids’ schooling, and the viability of so many local businesses. Pretending that the virus will just go away—or only affect other people—hasn’t accomplished anything other than to prolong the misery we have all been enduring for the last year and a half. The only way we, as a community, a city, a province, a nation, will move past this is by getting vaccinated; getting our kids vaccinated once they can; wearing masks when indoors or in crowds; and most importantly, not being petulant about it. No one likes needles, or fogged glasses from masks, but the sooner we are all vaccinated, the sooner the vulnerable people in our community will be safe, our hospitals and healthcare workers will be able to offer care to everyone who needs it, and we will be able to get on with our lives.
Photo Contest
The Bugle is looking for Brentwood’s best amateur photographers to provide cover images each month. If you have a great snap of our neighbourhood saved on your phone or posted on your social media feed, send it in for a chance to be featured on the cover of an upcoming issue! Photos must be 300 DPI or higher (i.e., from a newer model phone or good digital camera), 2400 x 1600 pixels minimum size, and portrait orientation. If submitting pictures of minors, please make sure that you have direct, express permission to submit the picture from a parent or guardian. Send your photos, or any questions, to [email protected].
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Jucker, editor, Brentwood Bugle
