by Anne Naumann
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the Highland Park community volunteers. We’ve accomplished a lot of things in the past year. I know there are some other community volunteers who helped ensure our programs and events ran smoothly, and my apologies for those who aren’t included below, but I’ve tried to include everyone I could recall who played a significant role. Many of our volunteers have helped with multiple programs and events. On behalf of our Board of Directors, I can tell you we are all truly thankful for everyone’s contribution.
We restarted our Seniors’ Luncheons in the last couple of months. It has been wonderful to see so many community seniors returning to our hall to share a meal and conversation with each other. It’s been a long hiatus due to COVID-19. A huge thanks goes out to our lead coordinator, who also serves on our Board, Rosalind, who again lined up the chefs from Fresh Start Recovery Centre to partner with us to cook the hot entrees and side dishes while her able staff volunteers prepare salads and desserts, set up and put away tables and chairs, and clean up afterward. The Seniors’ Luncheon main volunteer crew includes Ellen, Marilyn, Ray, Jeanne, Monica, Rohan, and well as some others periodically.
This past summer and fall we hosted multiple events, including Music in the Park, Shakespeare in the Park, weekly Rock Painting events, our Community Cleanup, and we started the Friday Night Fire events. The volunteers arranged musical acts, shopped for and cooked food, booked the City Waste and Recycling crew, as well as other recycling organizations, set up and put away tables and sound equipment, and cleaned up afterward. We couldn’t have accomplished any of these without a large number of volunteers. Thanks go out to Elise, Chris, Anne, Braiden, Roz, Jerry, Sara, Ellen, Wayne, Dee, Folivi, multiple students from the volunteer service team at Winston Churchill High School, Jeanne, Ray, Carolyne, Dave, Marilyn, Amrit, and the folks from Citizen Brewing, among others.
We’ve also had another great year with our outdoor rink (shoveling off the snow and creating multiple layers of ice) that has been well-used by our community and the Buchanan students at the start of February, our outdoor hall renovations (working with contractors to plan paint colours and the arbour design), and our rain garden (weeding and watering). Thanks go out to Garth, Chris, Michael, multiple Preschool parents, Gary, Donna, Elise, Greg, Sara, Amrit, Anne, Ellen, Simone, and others.
In addition to these events and outdoor projects, in the last year we created a Human Library (you can borrow a human “book” to learn about their area of expertise), hosted three Community Markets, continued the Block Connector program (which is currently evolving), started hosting the Indigenous Learning Film Series, and continued to serve as a Good Food Box ordering depot for the Calgary Community Kitchen. Thanks for these programs go out to Amrit, Ellen, Anne, Anisa, Suzi, Kelli, Bota, Doug, Salma, Suresh, Bob, Jennifer, Christy, Rosa, Kelli, Jill, Alexis, Farah, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few others.
Thanks also go out to our Casino volunteers who helped run our casino this past January. These volunteers were: Anne, Jerry, Robert, Kirk, Rebecca, Kyra, Elise, Jill, Carolyne, Chris, Dave, Dee, Phillip, Charlene, Marilyn, Joanne, Katrina, Carolyn, Talha, Elaine, Nic, Ellen, Monica, Donna, Michelle, Stephen, Anisa, Monique, Theresa, and Gina.
And overseeing all these amazing community offerings are the Highland Park Board of Directors. So, a big thanks to the 15 volunteers on our Board who are: Elise, Chris, Jerry, Carolyne, Anne, Jeanne, Rosalind, Amrit, Greg, Jill, Gary, Kathy, Braiden, Tanya, and Donna.
Finally, I know they aren’t volunteers, but I also want to acknowledge HPCA’s paid staff, our Hall Manager, Stephen, our Bookkeeper, Carolyn, and our Preschool Teaching staff, Chantal, Danna, and Sonja. Without their hard work in ensuring everything runs smoothly for our Hall rentals, Hall financial entries and filings, and Preschool operations, we would not be able to offer so many programs for our community. Working together we definitely make our community even better. If you want to join the HPCA group of volunteers, contact me at [email protected].
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