InFocus Magazine

Sarah Sullivan’s bright, cheery and upbeat manner and bearing render it difficult to comprehend that she spends her working days dealing compassionately with some of the most physically distressed people in the Comox Valley community.

On top of that seemingly grim reality, Sullivan, counselor/advocate for the Courtenay office of AIDS Vancouver Island (AVI), loves what she does as much as she cares for her client base. Those factors alone make her a natural for what she does. One thing that any service provider learns, if he or she is to survive without burnout, is to assume a certain objectivity and to not see the world solely through the eyes of the client.

Sullivan, who has been at the helm of the AVI office on Sixth Street in Courtenay for a little over a year, took to her role with enthusiasm. It’s an enthusiasm based on her familiarity with both the philosophy and the protocols of a facility that is virtually unknown to many residents in the community. That it is largely unknown is somewhat by design—this has kept the place, especially with its emotionally-charged (for some) ‘needle exchange’ away from community controversy.

In that, the Comox Valley AVI needle exchange has not been fraught with all the controversies that have faced the Victoria needle exchange. This is by design, Sullivan is quick to observe.

“We’ve been in this location for nine years,” Sullivan says. “Fortunately for us we have a great landlord. But, the essential point is we’re not visible. Access to needle exchange services is via the back door, not the street. Furthermore, what we find here is that the community accepts us as being a part of the public health strategy. Our goal is to promote a healthy community and it’s vital to us to maintain a good relationship with our neighbors.”

So, what’s a nice girl like Sarah doing in a job like this? Well, primarily she does it because she loves it.

“Generally, I like being in the background,” she says. “People who need to know about me, know about me. I’ve been a permanent employee for over a year. (In fact, she is the only full-time employee of the Courtenay facility; there is one part-timer, Jeanette, as well, and all others who work there are strictly volunteers). I came here first in April 2007 as a practicum student for 10 weeks with (her predecessor in the position) Phyllis Wood. After that I worked as a casual here.”

When Wood left last year, Sullivan competed for the position and got it. Prior to coming on board she worked as a suicide prevention trainer at Crossroads Crisis Centre. She still volunteers at Crossroads as a skills trainer.

Her involvement with human services comes to her later in life, she says. Her background is highly eclectic and she has served for extensive periods in other realms. This background, she believes, has enhanced her role today because it has given her ability to look at a number of issues that impact those seeking assistance from AVI.

“I worked for the federal government, for Transport Canada for a number of years,” she says. “Later my husband (her high school sweetheart, she notes) and I ran a home-based publishing business. In that area it really opened my eyes to the challenges faced by people with disabilities.”

In all of this, raising a family intervened, which made the home-based business ideal at that time. But, after her third daughter was born, she decided to go back to school and complete her truncated education. She began in the Women’s Studies program at North Island College and completed her associate degree through Thompson River University. Next year she gets her social work degree from the University of Victoria.

“Some background in finance has really helped me in this role,” she says. “I know what it’s like to live on a low income and can relate to people who are disenfranchised through health problems and challenges. And it’s in overcoming these obstacles that some of the people I work with amaze me. I am astonished at the inner resourcefulness of some people. Believe me, in this job I always take home more than I give.”

Sullivan is a Comox Valley girl to the core. Her mother is vegan author and longtime Comox District Free Press food columnist, Bryanna Clark-Grogan. Furthermore, she met her husband when they were both students at Vanier and the rest, for them, is history. Having spent virtually all her life here, it’s a delight for her to have a meaningful position in her home community.

The work of the AVI facility is multi-faceted, Sullivan says. Primarily it is a combination of three broad elements: education, prevention and support. The needle exchange operates five days a week and is primarily designed to abate the spread of HIV and Hepatitis-C in the community. Of the two afflictions, she notes that Hep-C is a source of greater concern than HIV—despite myths to the contrary—and is much more easily transmitted, especially among IV needle-using addicts.

“Here we need to look at many options,” she says. “Our role is not simply to hand out needles. We have to look realistically not just at the client, but anyone else concerned, like partners and family members. They all need support. With HIV it has changed immeasurably from the horrific early days when HIV almost always led to AIDS, with its often-inevitable lethal consequences. With new medications it is quite possible to live a normal lifespan and be HIV-positive. Fortunately, some of the best doctors in the HIV field are in BC.”

Hep-C, however, is a truly dangerous affliction. Spread by blood-to-blood contact (hence the ‘dirty needle’ connection), it can be asymptomatic for as long as 20 years. In that, she says people truly need to be aware of the risks and to also know there are treatment options. In that realm, AVI Courtenay calls on the expertise of Jeanette Reinhardt, who offers her services in both Courtenay and Campbell River. She is the educator who helps clients deal with the realities of HIV and safer sex, among other things.

AVI Courtenay (there are also offices in Campbell River, Victoria, Nanaimo, and Port Hardy) is a holistic operation wherever possible, Sullivan says, and works in tandem with other service providers in the community.
“We’ve been involved in working with the homeless and those at risk of homelessness,” she says. “We’re especially concerned when the cold weather comes. We’re involved with cold weather outreach in a joint project with Wachiay in which we bring sandwiches, tents, tarps, coats and so forth to the people that need them. The project has been running for five years and has been very successful. We plan to get it going again this year and will run it from November through March.”

Sullivan says that they keep a supply of heavy coats and tents at the facility, but that they always welcome donations of those items should anybody be interested in offering them up.

Other areas of service to the community in need include their hot lunch program, provided (entirely by donated food) every Tuesday.

“If you’d like to join our ‘shopping angels’, please call me,” says Sullivan. “We always welcome all the help we can get. We go on faith that we will get the help we need, and people have never failed us. For example, a local accounting firm donated a number of backpacks for the homeless. We didn’t request them; they just took it upon themselves to do it. Then, every year there is ‘Dining Out for Life’, with the proceeds going to AVI. It’s just amazing and heartwarming how many restaurants take part. This is a very giving community.”

In that context, Sullivan says, her resolute goal is to promote the feeling of community within the facility.

While the presence of individuals with HIV and Hep-C in the greater community is disquieting for some, especially the less well informed, Sullivan is determined to reach out for the sake of AVI and the clientele, as well as for the Comox Valley community. She keeps in close touch with the wants and needs of the greater community by various interactions, including being a member of the City of Courtenay-sponsored Comox Valley Community Drug Strategy Committee.

AVI works actively with other community agencies in the Comox Valley, and that only serves to the advantage of their clients. In terms of health care, AVI gains client access that brings them into contact with the best the community can offer. In the same context, those agencies offer invaluable aid to the AVI clients, including the public health nurse from the Nursing Centre who regularly tests for STDs with clients and gives inoculations as needed.

“The walk-in clinics in the Comox Valley also do amazing work,” Sullivan says. “And in that case, Maggie from the Nursing Centre acts as intermediary to help clients access the services they need. Fortunately, we in the Comox Valley are blessed with fantastic doctors.”

For those seeking alternate therapies, AVI also has an acupuncturist that comes in on a regular basis to help clients wanting that service.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to HIV or Hep-C, but I want our clients to know that this is a safe place for them,” she says. “If they need assistance they can find it here. We’re here for them. That’s why I really enjoy coming to work every day. I go home each night knowing I’ve done something good for the world. I love to listen to people’s stories and get to share in their lives.”

For more information about AIDS Vancouver Island call Sarah at 250-338-7400 or visit avi.org

Sarah Sullivan’s bright, life
cheery and upbeat manner and bearing render it difficult to comprehend that she spends her working days dealing compassionately with some of the most physically distressed people in the Comox Valley community.

On top of that seemingly grim reality, Sullivan, counselor/advocate for the Courtenay office of AIDS Vancouver Island (AVI), loves what she does as much as she cares for her client base. Those factors alone make her a natural for what she does. One thing that any service provider learns, if he or she is to survive without burnout, is to assume a certain objectivity and to not see the world solely through the eyes of the client.

Sullivan, who has been at the helm of the AVI office on Sixth Street in Courtenay for a little over a year, took to her role with enthusiasm. It’s an enthusiasm based on her familiarity with both the philosophy and the protocols of a facility that is virtually unknown to many residents in the community. That it is largely unknown is somewhat by design—this has kept the place, especially with its emotionally-charged (for some) ‘needle exchange’ away from community controversy.

In that, the Comox Valley AVI needle exchange has not been fraught with all the controversies that have faced the Victoria needle exchange. This is by design, Sullivan is quick to observe.

“We’ve been in this location for nine years,” Sullivan says. “Fortunately for us we have a great landlord. But, the essential point is we’re not visible. Access to needle exchange services is via the back door, not the street. Furthermore, what we find here is that the community accepts us as being a part of the public health strategy. Our goal is to promote a healthy community and it’s vital to us to maintain a good relationship with our neighbors.”

So, what’s a nice girl like Sarah doing in a job like this? Well, primarily she does it because she loves it.

“Generally, I like being in the background,” she says. “People who need to know about me, know about me. I’ve been a permanent employee for over a year. (In fact, she is the only full-time employee of the Courtenay facility; there is one part-timer, Jeanette, as well, and all others who work there are strictly volunteers). I came here first in April 2007 as a practicum student for 10 weeks with (her predecessor in the position) Phyllis Wood. After that I worked as a casual here.”

When Wood left last year, Sullivan competed for the position and got it. Prior to coming on board she worked as a suicide prevention trainer at Crossroads Crisis Centre. She still volunteers at Crossroads as a skills trainer.

Her involvement with human services comes to her later in life, she says. Her background is highly eclectic and she has served for extensive periods in other realms. This background, she believes, has enhanced her role today because it has given her ability to look at a number of issues that impact those seeking assistance from AVI.

“I worked for the federal government, for Transport Canada for a number of years,” she says. “Later my husband (her high school sweetheart, she notes) and I ran a home-based publishing business. In that area it really opened my eyes to the challenges faced by people with disabilities.”

In all of this, raising a family intervened, which made the home-based business ideal at that time. But, after her third daughter was born, she decided to go back to school and complete her truncated education. She began in the Women’s Studies program at North Island College and completed her associate degree through Thompson River University. Next year she gets her social work degree from the University of Victoria.

“Some background in finance has really helped me in this role,” she says. “I know what it’s like to live on a low income and can relate to people who are disenfranchised through health problems and challenges. And it’s in overcoming these obstacles that some of the people I work with amaze me. I am astonished at the inner resourcefulness of some people. Believe me, in this job I always take home more than I give.”

Sullivan is a Comox Valley girl to the core. Her mother is vegan author and longtime Comox District Free Press food columnist, Bryanna Clark-Grogan. Furthermore, she met her husband when they were both students at Vanier and the rest, for them, is history. Having spent virtually all her life here, it’s a delight for her to have a meaningful position in her home community.

The work of the AVI facility is multi-faceted, Sullivan says. Primarily it is a combination of three broad elements: education, prevention and support. The needle exchange operates five days a week and is primarily designed to abate the spread of HIV and Hepatitis-C in the community. Of the two afflictions, she notes that Hep-C is a source of greater concern than HIV—despite myths to the contrary—and is much more easily transmitted, especially among IV needle-using addicts.

“Here we need to look at many options,” she says. “Our role is not simply to hand out needles. We have to look realistically not just at the client, but anyone else concerned, like partners and family members. They all need support. With HIV it has changed immeasurably from the horrific early days when HIV almost always led to AIDS, with its often-inevitable lethal consequences. With new medications it is quite possible to live a normal lifespan and be HIV-positive. Fortunately, some of the best doctors in the HIV field are in BC.”

Hep-C, however, is a truly dangerous affliction. Spread by blood-to-blood contact (hence the ‘dirty needle’ connection), it can be asymptomatic for as long as 20 years. In that, she says people truly need to be aware of the risks and to also know there are treatment options. In that realm, AVI Courtenay calls on the expertise of Jeanette Reinhardt, who offers her services in both Courtenay and Campbell River. She is the educator who helps clients deal with the realities of HIV and safer sex, among other things.

AVI Courtenay (there are also offices in Campbell River, Victoria, Nanaimo, and Port Hardy) is a holistic operation wherever possible, Sullivan says, and works in tandem with other service providers in the community.
“We’ve been involved in working with the homeless and those at risk of homelessness,” she says. “We’re especially concerned when the cold weather comes. We’re involved with cold weather outreach in a joint project with Wachiay in which we bring sandwiches, tents, tarps, coats and so forth to the people that need them. The project has been running for five years and has been very successful. We plan to get it going again this year and will run it from November through March.”

Sullivan says that they keep a supply of heavy coats and tents at the facility, but that they always welcome donations of those items should anybody be interested in offering them up.

Other areas of service to the community in need include their hot lunch program, provided (entirely by donated food) every Tuesday.

“If you’d like to join our ‘shopping angels’, please call me,” says Sullivan. “We always welcome all the help we can get. We go on faith that we will get the help we need, and people have never failed us. For example, a local accounting firm donated a number of backpacks for the homeless. We didn’t request them; they just took it upon themselves to do it. Then, every year there is ‘Dining Out for Life’, with the proceeds going to AVI. It’s just amazing and heartwarming how many restaurants take part. This is a very giving community.”

In that context, Sullivan says, her resolute goal is to promote the feeling of community within the facility.

While the presence of individuals with HIV and Hep-C in the greater community is disquieting for some, especially the less well informed, Sullivan is determined to reach out for the sake of AVI and the clientele, as well as for the Comox Valley community. She keeps in close touch with the wants and needs of the greater community by various interactions, including being a member of the City of Courtenay-sponsored Comox Valley Community Drug Strategy Committee.

AVI works actively with other community agencies in the Comox Valley, and that only serves to the advantage of their clients. In terms of health care, AVI gains client access that brings them into contact with the best the community can offer. In the same context, those agencies offer invaluable aid to the AVI clients, including the public health nurse from the Nursing Centre who regularly tests for STDs with clients and gives inoculations as needed.

“The walk-in clinics in the Comox Valley also do amazing work,” Sullivan says. “And in that case, Maggie from the Nursing Centre acts as intermediary to help clients access the services they need. Fortunately, we in the Comox Valley are blessed with fantastic doctors.”

For those seeking alternate therapies, AVI also has an acupuncturist that comes in on a regular basis to help clients wanting that service.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to HIV or Hep-C, but I want our clients to know that this is a safe place for them,” she says. “If they need assistance they can find it here. We’re here for them. That’s why I really enjoy coming to work every day. I go home each night knowing I’ve done something good for the world. I love to listen to people’s stories and get to share in their lives.”

For more information about AIDS Vancouver Island call Sarah at 250-338-7400 or visit avi.org

Sarah Sullivan’s bright, cheery and upbeat manner and bearing render it difficult to comprehend that she spends her working days dealing compassionately with some of the most physically distressed people in the Comox Valley community.

On top of that seemingly grim reality, Sullivan, counselor/advocate for the Courtenay office of AIDS Vancouver Island (AVI), loves what she does as much as she cares for her client base. Those factors alone make her a natural for what she does. One thing that any service provider learns, if he or she is to survive without burnout, is to assume a certain objectivity and to not see the world solely through the eyes of the client.

Sullivan, who has been at the helm of the AVI office on Sixth Street in Courtenay for a little over a year, took to her role with enthusiasm. It’s an enthusiasm based on her familiarity with both the philosophy and the protocols of a facility that is virtually unknown to many residents in the community. That it is largely unknown is somewhat by design—this has kept the place, especially with its emotionally-charged (for some) ‘needle exchange’ away from community controversy.

In that, the Comox Valley AVI needle exchange has not been fraught with all the controversies that have faced the Victoria needle exchange. This is by design, Sullivan is quick to observe.

“We’ve been in this location for nine years,” Sullivan says. “Fortunately for us we have a great landlord. But, the essential point is we’re not visible. Access to needle exchange services is via the back door, not the street. Furthermore, what we find here is that the community accepts us as being a part of the public health strategy. Our goal is to promote a healthy community and it’s vital to us to maintain a good relationship with our neighbors.”

So, what’s a nice girl like Sarah doing in a job like this? Well, primarily she does it because she loves it.

“Generally, I like being in the background,” she says. “People who need to know about me, know about me. I’ve been a permanent employee for over a year. (In fact, she is the only full-time employee of the Courtenay facility; there is one part-timer, Jeanette, as well, and all others who work there are strictly volunteers). I came here first in April 2007 as a practicum student for 10 weeks with (her predecessor in the position) Phyllis Wood. After that I worked as a casual here.”

When Wood left last year, Sullivan competed for the position and got it. Prior to coming on board she worked as a suicide prevention trainer at Crossroads Crisis Centre. She still volunteers at Crossroads as a skills trainer.

Her involvement with human services comes to her later in life, she says. Her background is highly eclectic and she has served for extensive periods in other realms. This background, she believes, has enhanced her role today because it has given her ability to look at a number of issues that impact those seeking assistance from AVI.

“I worked for the federal government, for Transport Canada for a number of years,” she says. “Later my husband (her high school sweetheart, she notes) and I ran a home-based publishing business. In that area it really opened my eyes to the challenges faced by people with disabilities.”

In all of this, raising a family intervened, which made the home-based business ideal at that time. But, after her third daughter was born, she decided to go back to school and complete her truncated education. She began in the Women’s Studies program at North Island College and completed her associate degree through Thompson River University. Next year she gets her social work degree from the University of Victoria.

“Some background in finance has really helped me in this role,” she says. “I know what it’s like to live on a low income and can relate to people who are disenfranchised through health problems and challenges. And it’s in overcoming these obstacles that some of the people I work with amaze me. I am astonished at the inner resourcefulness of some people. Believe me, in this job I always take home more than I give.”

Sullivan is a Comox Valley girl to the core. Her mother is vegan author and longtime Comox District Free Press food columnist, Bryanna Clark-Grogan. Furthermore, she met her husband when they were both students at Vanier and the rest, for them, is history. Having spent virtually all her life here, it’s a delight for her to have a meaningful position in her home community.

The work of the AVI facility is multi-faceted, Sullivan says. Primarily it is a combination of three broad elements: education, prevention and support. The needle exchange operates five days a week and is primarily designed to abate the spread of HIV and Hepatitis-C in the community. Of the two afflictions, she notes that Hep-C is a source of greater concern than HIV—despite myths to the contrary—and is much more easily transmitted, especially among IV needle-using addicts.

“Here we need to look at many options,” she says. “Our role is not simply to hand out needles. We have to look realistically not just at the client, but anyone else concerned, like partners and family members. They all need support. With HIV it has changed immeasurably from the horrific early days when HIV almost always led to AIDS, with its often-inevitable lethal consequences. With new medications it is quite possible to live a normal lifespan and be HIV-positive. Fortunately, some of the best doctors in the HIV field are in BC.”

Hep-C, however, is a truly dangerous affliction. Spread by blood-to-blood contact (hence the ‘dirty needle’ connection), it can be asymptomatic for as long as 20 years. In that, she says people truly need to be aware of the risks and to also know there are treatment options. In that realm, AVI Courtenay calls on the expertise of Jeanette Reinhardt, who offers her services in both Courtenay and Campbell River. She is the educator who helps clients deal with the realities of HIV and safer sex, among other things.

AVI Courtenay (there are also offices in Campbell River, Victoria, Nanaimo, and Port Hardy) is a holistic operation wherever possible, Sullivan says, and works in tandem with other service providers in the community.
“We’ve been involved in working with the homeless and those at risk of homelessness,” she says. “We’re especially concerned when the cold weather comes. We’re involved with cold weather outreach in a joint project with Wachiay in which we bring sandwiches, tents, tarps, coats and so forth to the people that need them. The project has been running for five years and has been very successful. We plan to get it going again this year and will run it from November through March.”

Sullivan says that they keep a supply of heavy coats and tents at the facility, but that they always welcome donations of those items should anybody be interested in offering them up.

Other areas of service to the community in need include their hot lunch program, provided (entirely by donated food) every Tuesday.

“If you’d like to join our ‘shopping angels’, please call me,” says Sullivan. “We always welcome all the help we can get. We go on faith that we will get the help we need, and people have never failed us. For example, a local accounting firm donated a number of backpacks for the homeless. We didn’t request them; they just took it upon themselves to do it. Then, every year there is ‘Dining Out for Life’, with the proceeds going to AVI. It’s just amazing and heartwarming how many restaurants take part. This is a very giving community.”

In that context, Sullivan says, her resolute goal is to promote the feeling of community within the facility.

While the presence of individuals with HIV and Hep-C in the greater community is disquieting for some, especially the less well informed, Sullivan is determined to reach out for the sake of AVI and the clientele, as well as for the Comox Valley community. She keeps in close touch with the wants and needs of the greater community by various interactions, including being a member of the City of Courtenay-sponsored Comox Valley Community Drug Strategy Committee.

AVI works actively with other community agencies in the Comox Valley, and that only serves to the advantage of their clients. In terms of health care, AVI gains client access that brings them into contact with the best the community can offer. In the same context, those agencies offer invaluable aid to the AVI clients, including the public health nurse from the Nursing Centre who regularly tests for STDs with clients and gives inoculations as needed.

“The walk-in clinics in the Comox Valley also do amazing work,” Sullivan says. “And in that case, Maggie from the Nursing Centre acts as intermediary to help clients access the services they need. Fortunately, we in the Comox Valley are blessed with fantastic doctors.”

For those seeking alternate therapies, AVI also has an acupuncturist that comes in on a regular basis to help clients wanting that service.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to HIV or Hep-C, but I want our clients to know that this is a safe place for them,” she says. “If they need assistance they can find it here. We’re here for them. That’s why I really enjoy coming to work every day. I go home each night knowing I’ve done something good for the world. I love to listen to people’s stories and get to share in their lives.”

For more information about AIDS Vancouver Island call Sarah at 250-338-7400 or visit avi.org

Sarah Sullivan’s bright, medicine
cheery and upbeat manner and bearing render it difficult to comprehend that she spends her working days dealing compassionately with some of the most physically distressed people in the Comox Valley community.

On top of that seemingly grim reality, Sullivan, counselor/advocate for the Courtenay office of AIDS Vancouver Island (AVI), loves what she does as much as she cares for her client base. Those factors alone make her a natural for what she does. One thing that any service provider learns, if he or she is to survive without burnout, is to assume a certain objectivity and to not see the world solely through the eyes of the client.

Sullivan, who has been at the helm of the AVI office on Sixth Street in Courtenay for a little over a year, took to her role with enthusiasm. It’s an enthusiasm based on her familiarity with both the philosophy and the protocols of a facility that is virtually unknown to many residents in the community. That it is largely unknown is somewhat by design—this has kept the place, especially with its emotionally-charged (for some) ‘needle exchange’ away from community controversy.

In that, the Comox Valley AVI needle exchange has not been fraught with all the controversies that have faced the Victoria needle exchange. This is by design, Sullivan is quick to observe.

“We’ve been in this location for nine years,” Sullivan says. “Fortunately for us we have a great landlord. But, the essential point is we’re not visible. Access to needle exchange services is via the back door, not the street. Furthermore, what we find here is that the community accepts us as being a part of the public health strategy. Our goal is to promote a healthy community and it’s vital to us to maintain a good relationship with our neighbors.”

So, what’s a nice girl like Sarah doing in a job like this? Well, primarily she does it because she loves it.

“Generally, I like being in the background,” she says. “People who need to know about me, know about me. I’ve been a permanent employee for over a year. (In fact, she is the only full-time employee of the Courtenay facility; there is one part-timer, Jeanette, as well, and all others who work there are strictly volunteers). I came here first in April 2007 as a practicum student for 10 weeks with (her predecessor in the position) Phyllis Wood. After that I worked as a casual here.”

When Wood left last year, Sullivan competed for the position and got it. Prior to coming on board she worked as a suicide prevention trainer at Crossroads Crisis Centre. She still volunteers at Crossroads as a skills trainer.

Her involvement with human services comes to her later in life, she says. Her background is highly eclectic and she has served for extensive periods in other realms. This background, she believes, has enhanced her role today because it has given her ability to look at a number of issues that impact those seeking assistance from AVI.

“I worked for the federal government, for Transport Canada for a number of years,” she says. “Later my husband (her high school sweetheart, she notes) and I ran a home-based publishing business. In that area it really opened my eyes to the challenges faced by people with disabilities.”

In all of this, raising a family intervened, which made the home-based business ideal at that time. But, after her third daughter was born, she decided to go back to school and complete her truncated education. She began in the Women’s Studies program at North Island College and completed her associate degree through Thompson River University. Next year she gets her social work degree from the University of Victoria.

“Some background in finance has really helped me in this role,” she says. “I know what it’s like to live on a low income and can relate to people who are disenfranchised through health problems and challenges. And it’s in overcoming these obstacles that some of the people I work with amaze me. I am astonished at the inner resourcefulness of some people. Believe me, in this job I always take home more than I give.”

Sullivan is a Comox Valley girl to the core. Her mother is vegan author and longtime Comox District Free Press food columnist, Bryanna Clark-Grogan. Furthermore, she met her husband when they were both students at Vanier and the rest, for them, is history. Having spent virtually all her life here, it’s a delight for her to have a meaningful position in her home community.

The work of the AVI facility is multi-faceted, Sullivan says. Primarily it is a combination of three broad elements: education, prevention and support. The needle exchange operates five days a week and is primarily designed to abate the spread of HIV and Hepatitis-C in the community. Of the two afflictions, she notes that Hep-C is a source of greater concern than HIV—despite myths to the contrary—and is much more easily transmitted, especially among IV needle-using addicts.

“Here we need to look at many options,” she says. “Our role is not simply to hand out needles. We have to look realistically not just at the client, but anyone else concerned, like partners and family members. They all need support. With HIV it has changed immeasurably from the horrific early days when HIV almost always led to AIDS, with its often-inevitable lethal consequences. With new medications it is quite possible to live a normal lifespan and be HIV-positive. Fortunately, some of the best doctors in the HIV field are in BC.”

Hep-C, however, is a truly dangerous affliction. Spread by blood-to-blood contact (hence the ‘dirty needle’ connection), it can be asymptomatic for as long as 20 years. In that, she says people truly need to be aware of the risks and to also know there are treatment options. In that realm, AVI Courtenay calls on the expertise of Jeanette Reinhardt, who offers her services in both Courtenay and Campbell River. She is the educator who helps clients deal with the realities of HIV and safer sex, among other things.

AVI Courtenay (there are also offices in Campbell River, Victoria, Nanaimo, and Port Hardy) is a holistic operation wherever possible, Sullivan says, and works in tandem with other service providers in the community.
“We’ve been involved in working with the homeless and those at risk of homelessness,” she says. “We’re especially concerned when the cold weather comes. We’re involved with cold weather outreach in a joint project with Wachiay in which we bring sandwiches, tents, tarps, coats and so forth to the people that need them. The project has been running for five years and has been very successful. We plan to get it going again this year and will run it from November through March.”

Sullivan says that they keep a supply of heavy coats and tents at the facility, but that they always welcome donations of those items should anybody be interested in offering them up.

Other areas of service to the community in need include their hot lunch program, provided (entirely by donated food) every Tuesday.

“If you’d like to join our ‘shopping angels’, please call me,” says Sullivan. “We always welcome all the help we can get. We go on faith that we will get the help we need, and people have never failed us. For example, a local accounting firm donated a number of backpacks for the homeless. We didn’t request them; they just took it upon themselves to do it. Then, every year there is ‘Dining Out for Life’, with the proceeds going to AVI. It’s just amazing and heartwarming how many restaurants take part. This is a very giving community.”

In that context, Sullivan says, her resolute goal is to promote the feeling of community within the facility.

While the presence of individuals with HIV and Hep-C in the greater community is disquieting for some, especially the less well informed, Sullivan is determined to reach out for the sake of AVI and the clientele, as well as for the Comox Valley community. She keeps in close touch with the wants and needs of the greater community by various interactions, including being a member of the City of Courtenay-sponsored Comox Valley Community Drug Strategy Committee.

AVI works actively with other community agencies in the Comox Valley, and that only serves to the advantage of their clients. In terms of health care, AVI gains client access that brings them into contact with the best the community can offer. In the same context, those agencies offer invaluable aid to the AVI clients, including the public health nurse from the Nursing Centre who regularly tests for STDs with clients and gives inoculations as needed.

“The walk-in clinics in the Comox Valley also do amazing work,” Sullivan says. “And in that case, Maggie from the Nursing Centre acts as intermediary to help clients access the services they need. Fortunately, we in the Comox Valley are blessed with fantastic doctors.”

For those seeking alternate therapies, AVI also has an acupuncturist that comes in on a regular basis to help clients wanting that service.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to HIV or Hep-C, but I want our clients to know that this is a safe place for them,” she says. “If they need assistance they can find it here. We’re here for them. That’s why I really enjoy coming to work every day. I go home each night knowing I’ve done something good for the world. I love to listen to people’s stories and get to share in their lives.”

For more information about AIDS Vancouver Island call Sarah at 250-338-7400 or visit avi.org

Sarah Sullivan’s bright, cheery and upbeat manner and bearing render it difficult to comprehend that she spends her working days dealing compassionately with some of the most physically distressed people in the Comox Valley community.

On top of that seemingly grim reality, Sullivan, counselor/advocate for the Courtenay office of AIDS Vancouver Island (AVI), loves what she does as much as she cares for her client base. Those factors alone make her a natural for what she does. One thing that any service provider learns, if he or she is to survive without burnout, is to assume a certain objectivity and to not see the world solely through the eyes of the client.

Sullivan, who has been at the helm of the AVI office on Sixth Street in Courtenay for a little over a year, took to her role with enthusiasm. It’s an enthusiasm based on her familiarity with both the philosophy and the protocols of a facility that is virtually unknown to many residents in the community. That it is largely unknown is somewhat by design—this has kept the place, especially with its emotionally-charged (for some) ‘needle exchange’ away from community controversy.

In that, the Comox Valley AVI needle exchange has not been fraught with all the controversies that have faced the Victoria needle exchange. This is by design, Sullivan is quick to observe.

“We’ve been in this location for nine years,” Sullivan says. “Fortunately for us we have a great landlord. But, the essential point is we’re not visible. Access to needle exchange services is via the back door, not the street. Furthermore, what we find here is that the community accepts us as being a part of the public health strategy. Our goal is to promote a healthy community and it’s vital to us to maintain a good relationship with our neighbors.”

So, what’s a nice girl like Sarah doing in a job like this? Well, primarily she does it because she loves it.

“Generally, I like being in the background,” she says. “People who need to know about me, know about me. I’ve been a permanent employee for over a year. (In fact, she is the only full-time employee of the Courtenay facility; there is one part-timer, Jeanette, as well, and all others who work there are strictly volunteers). I came here first in April 2007 as a practicum student for 10 weeks with (her predecessor in the position) Phyllis Wood. After that I worked as a casual here.”

When Wood left last year, Sullivan competed for the position and got it. Prior to coming on board she worked as a suicide prevention trainer at Crossroads Crisis Centre. She still volunteers at Crossroads as a skills trainer.

Her involvement with human services comes to her later in life, she says. Her background is highly eclectic and she has served for extensive periods in other realms. This background, she believes, has enhanced her role today because it has given her ability to look at a number of issues that impact those seeking assistance from AVI.

“I worked for the federal government, for Transport Canada for a number of years,” she says. “Later my husband (her high school sweetheart, she notes) and I ran a home-based publishing business. In that area it really opened my eyes to the challenges faced by people with disabilities.”

In all of this, raising a family intervened, which made the home-based business ideal at that time. But, after her third daughter was born, she decided to go back to school and complete her truncated education. She began in the Women’s Studies program at North Island College and completed her associate degree through Thompson River University. Next year she gets her social work degree from the University of Victoria.

“Some background in finance has really helped me in this role,” she says. “I know what it’s like to live on a low income and can relate to people who are disenfranchised through health problems and challenges. And it’s in overcoming these obstacles that some of the people I work with amaze me. I am astonished at the inner resourcefulness of some people. Believe me, in this job I always take home more than I give.”

Sullivan is a Comox Valley girl to the core. Her mother is vegan author and longtime Comox District Free Press food columnist, Bryanna Clark-Grogan. Furthermore, she met her husband when they were both students at Vanier and the rest, for them, is history. Having spent virtually all her life here, it’s a delight for her to have a meaningful position in her home community.

The work of the AVI facility is multi-faceted, Sullivan says. Primarily it is a combination of three broad elements: education, prevention and support. The needle exchange operates five days a week and is primarily designed to abate the spread of HIV and Hepatitis-C in the community. Of the two afflictions, she notes that Hep-C is a source of greater concern than HIV—despite myths to the contrary—and is much more easily transmitted, especially among IV needle-using addicts.

“Here we need to look at many options,” she says. “Our role is not simply to hand out needles. We have to look realistically not just at the client, but anyone else concerned, like partners and family members. They all need support. With HIV it has changed immeasurably from the horrific early days when HIV almost always led to AIDS, with its often-inevitable lethal consequences. With new medications it is quite possible to live a normal lifespan and be HIV-positive. Fortunately, some of the best doctors in the HIV field are in BC.”

Hep-C, however, is a truly dangerous affliction. Spread by blood-to-blood contact (hence the ‘dirty needle’ connection), it can be asymptomatic for as long as 20 years. In that, she says people truly need to be aware of the risks and to also know there are treatment options. In that realm, AVI Courtenay calls on the expertise of Jeanette Reinhardt, who offers her services in both Courtenay and Campbell River. She is the educator who helps clients deal with the realities of HIV and safer sex, among other things.

AVI Courtenay (there are also offices in Campbell River, Victoria, Nanaimo, and Port Hardy) is a holistic operation wherever possible, Sullivan says, and works in tandem with other service providers in the community.
“We’ve been involved in working with the homeless and those at risk of homelessness,” she says. “We’re especially concerned when the cold weather comes. We’re involved with cold weather outreach in a joint project with Wachiay in which we bring sandwiches, tents, tarps, coats and so forth to the people that need them. The project has been running for five years and has been very successful. We plan to get it going again this year and will run it from November through March.”

Sullivan says that they keep a supply of heavy coats and tents at the facility, but that they always welcome donations of those items should anybody be interested in offering them up.

Other areas of service to the community in need include their hot lunch program, provided (entirely by donated food) every Tuesday.

“If you’d like to join our ‘shopping angels’, please call me,” says Sullivan. “We always welcome all the help we can get. We go on faith that we will get the help we need, and people have never failed us. For example, a local accounting firm donated a number of backpacks for the homeless. We didn’t request them; they just took it upon themselves to do it. Then, every year there is ‘Dining Out for Life’, with the proceeds going to AVI. It’s just amazing and heartwarming how many restaurants take part. This is a very giving community.”

In that context, Sullivan says, her resolute goal is to promote the feeling of community within the facility.

While the presence of individuals with HIV and Hep-C in the greater community is disquieting for some, especially the less well informed, Sullivan is determined to reach out for the sake of AVI and the clientele, as well as for the Comox Valley community. She keeps in close touch with the wants and needs of the greater community by various interactions, including being a member of the City of Courtenay-sponsored Comox Valley Community Drug Strategy Committee.

AVI works actively with other community agencies in the Comox Valley, and that only serves to the advantage of their clients. In terms of health care, AVI gains client access that brings them into contact with the best the community can offer. In the same context, those agencies offer invaluable aid to the AVI clients, including the public health nurse from the Nursing Centre who regularly tests for STDs with clients and gives inoculations as needed.

“The walk-in clinics in the Comox Valley also do amazing work,” Sullivan says. “And in that case, Maggie from the Nursing Centre acts as intermediary to help clients access the services they need. Fortunately, we in the Comox Valley are blessed with fantastic doctors.”

For those seeking alternate therapies, AVI also has an acupuncturist that comes in on a regular basis to help clients wanting that service.

“There’s a lot of stigma attached to HIV or Hep-C, but I want our clients to know that this is a safe place for them,” she says. “If they need assistance they can find it here. We’re here for them. That’s why I really enjoy coming to work every day. I go home each night knowing I’ve done something good for the world. I love to listen to people’s stories and get to share in their lives.”

For more information about AIDS Vancouver Island call Sarah at 250-338-7400 or visit avi.org

Even without an instrument, pestilence
piano instructor Kelly Thomas is musical. As she talks about how music has shaped and guided her life, help
her silver bracelets quietly chime together. And as she excitedly discusses the power of music and the inspiration she finds in sharing her musical passions with her students, ampoule her wrist symphony rises to a crescendo.

Nestled into a First Street green space, Thomas’ home and studio look out onto a small creek and the wildlife that use the space as a corridor to the Puntledge River. Thomas moved to the Valley from Edmonton two years ago and started teaching piano and salsa dancing. She had 25 years of experience as an accompanist but had only taught art—never piano—before this. “The traditional piano methods that I had learned with didn’t even remotely convey the feeling I had about music and where the joy, for me, is,” Thomas explains.

This joy comes in giving her students music as a lifelong companion and empowering them to find their own individual voice through music. She accomplishes this by using a non-traditional, or playing-based, method of teaching called Simply Music.

Simply Music was developed by an Australian musician, Neil Moore, who was given the challenge to teach a blind, eight-year-old boy to play the piano. So, Moore began to compose pieces and ‘distill’ them into patterns that he could translate directly into his student’s hands, and thus onto the keyboard.

Thomas glances toward her upright Steinway as she describes the process. “He touched his student’s hands and gave them a sequence. He explained that this is a pattern and you repeat the pattern and it goes up here and then down here. This motivic repetition, variation and development is the compositional and improvisational foundation for western popular, jazz and classical music.”

It sounds complicated but it is as natural as learning how to speak. Not only did Moore’s student excel through this method of teaching, he was able to pass on these lessons to his four-year-old sister, who was also blind. Moore began to share these techniques with other teachers and Simply Music was born.

“The idea here is that the teaching is not hinged on reading,” says Thomas, furthering her explanation by holding out her hands and saying: “Music is put into your hands and put directly onto the instrument, which then becomes part of a song and, from there, a part of your musical language for self expression.”

Neil Moore recognized a recurring problem with traditional reading-based approaches to teaching piano. How many people had piano lessons as kids and then abandon their lessons as soon as they are old enough to decide for themselves? In his article The Piano: Its Present and Future, pianist Jeffrey Chappell cites Morty Manus’s ponderings on the drop out rates for piano lessons. “There are statistics which indicate that 90 per cent of students who drop out still wish that they could play the piano. The future of the piano as a pedagogical instrument should consist of supportive, client-oriented approaches which recognize the study of music as a means for fulfillment and self-expression.”

Thomas couldn’t agree more. She pushes her curly hair back and leans forward to emphasize her next point: “This curriculum is designed to facilitate music as being a companion for life so that students will stick with it, so that music will be a friend, a source of solace, and an integral part of their entire lives.”

The Simply Music program covers popular music, classical, blues, gospel and accompaniment. The accompaniment aspect of Simply Music is important because it is, by its very definition, playing with another instrument. Thomas points out that “piano has generally been one person with one piano in a practice room.” She pauses here to sing a few scales. “But by learning accompaniment fairly early, it means that people can get together with other instrumentalists or vocalists, much the way guitar players do.”

This deep connection with a musical community is what Thomas has found in her own life, whether playing in a band or accompanying others. Thomas met her lifelong friend, the piano, at the age of seven with reading based lessons starting in Calgary and eventually in Yellowknife. She played both popular and conservatory pieces but didn’t participate in any of the exams until university where she went straight into the Grade 9 exam and came out with first class honors.

“The turning point for me,” Thomas recalls, “and I remember it so clearly, was when I was around 12 and I was playing this piece, a Christmas pop song.” She hums the tune, head bopping, hands tapping. “And I really couldn’t play it the way it was written so I just slightly modified it. In retrospect I can tell that I added a swing feel to it. I didn’t know that’s what it was—I just knew that that was how I heard the song. When I played it at the lesson, the piano teacher’s reaction was: ‘Hmmm, you can play it that way if you want to.’ Compare that to my next teacher, who was amazing and she said, ‘OK, look, if you can’t play it, fake it.’ What that meant to me was that you have to know: what the genre is, what is going on in the piece, where it is going, and what the form is so that you can get through without stopping and without anyone thinking ‘this person doesn’t know what they are doing.’ The idea is to make sure that you know what is going on so that you can play convincingly.”

Arriving in Edmonton, after growing up in Yellowknife, Thomas initially enrolled in the University of Alberta’s music program, but later switched to another highly successful music program offered by Grant MacEwan Community College. There she developed her music skills in the jazz program and cultivated her interest in a broad range of music.

Thomas’ belief in lifelong learning led her toward the education sector, where she began her career in television and video production with AccessTV, Alberta’s educational television station, whilst pursuing her avocation as a community choir accompanist. For 25 years she was the accompanist for the Ekos choir. “That was my main enjoyment,” she says with a tinge of nostalgic sadness. “It is a wonderful group of people from all walks of life who come together because they love to share music.”

Six years ago Thomas returned to university to finish her degree. Her major was fine arts and her minor was music with a focus on ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology is a branch of musicology defined as “the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts.” According to Thomas, the focus was immersion in the topic of study. “It’s not studying it in the third person, it is actually doing it. That is when I got involved in African dance and drumming and realized that many cultures pass on their music through means other than writing. This really resonated with me.”

To make ends meet while at school, Thomas hosted a classical music show on Alberta’s CKUA radio station. CKUA is a listener-funded radio station “with a tremendously broad range of programming in classical, jazz, folk, rock, world, alternative as well as educational segments”—a perfect fit for someone with Thomas’ background and predilections.

It was about this time that Thomas reconnected with another great love in her life: Cuban music. A Nigerian with a cockney accent and a PhD in genetics had started teaching Cuban salsa and it caught on like wildfire. “It is a hugely popular dance that is taking the whole world by storm,” Thomas says. “And, one of the best things about it is that you can go almost anywhere in the world and find a place to dance salsa.

“Playing music has been with me all my life and I feel so fortunate to have that. But,” Thomas confesses, “I never thought that I could dance. I was a total sports geek. Growing up in Yellowknife, all I seemed to do was train for competitive swimming. So, I never really got the opportunity to learn partner dancing. And let’s face it—musicians rarely get to dance, unless of course you’re Cuban.”

So, when a friend invited Thomas to come out to a Cuban salsa class she was amazed to discover how quickly she picked it up and, that suddenly Cuban music began to make a lot more sense. “I had heard Cuban music before and I was really interested in it but it was so complicated. The rhythms were fascinating but complex and I just didn’t get it. But, as soon as I learned to dance, it all became so much clearer because it is a music that is derived from dance. The music and the dance are inseparable. I started hearing things that I hadn’t heard before in the music so it was doubly great because I felt that I was expanding myself musically, plus I was starting to become more coordinated on the dance floor which was fabulous.”

When Thomas and her husband moved to Courtenay a few years ago they were happy to find that many in the community were interested in salsa and that, with their own experience in Cuban salsa, they had something to add. They began SalsaSundays and a drop in Friday night practice. “After learning salsa and enjoying it so much it would be terrible not to have it continue as part of our lives,” Thomas says. “We really just want to dance and socialize with people that love to salsa dance.”

Thomas’ shift from participant in music to teacher coincides with her move to the Comox Valley. Her commitment to contributing to the musical community is evident in her other endeavours: pianist with the Georgia Straight Big Band and flautist with the Comox Valley Concert Band.

And how has the Comox Valley responded to these new teachings? “So far, I am just so thrilled with how things are going,” Thomas says with a huge smile. “I have a lot of kids in my Simply Music lessons, but I also really enjoy working with adults because they bring so much life experience to what they want to express. They ask really interesting questions and want to know the history and the ethnomusicology behind the pieces. It is also a great activity for adults because it keeps the mind sharp. It opens up whole new avenues in your brain when you learn something new.”

One of Thomas’ students, Janet Rogers, has thoroughly enjoyed coming back to playing the piano as an adult student.  “Kelly’s passion for music, her patience with me as a ‘mature’ student and her innovative ways of teaching, have produced remarkable results,” Rogers says. “She ignites in me a joy to connect with music and then she provides the structure to let that musicality flow out to the piano.”

In their first couple of lessons, Thomas taught Rogers some basic movements on the piano and some terminology. By the third lesson, Rogers was learning the blues form and in the first year she learned a number of well known classical pieces, accompaniment, major, minor, seventh and thirteenth cords, some popular pieces, and a number of pieces that she wanted to learn that weren’t part of the core curriculum.

Students in the first year are getting accustomed to playing and recognizing how to learn pieces. “You are learning how to learn,” she explains. “In the first year you don’t look at any sheet music. You just play. By about a year and half you’re learning how to write and read rhythm. Into the second year you learn how to read music based on what you know how to play. When you learn to read the music, the world really opens up. It is like learning any language where you learn to speak and then to read. When you learn to read music, you already have a vocabulary. It makes it so much easier to follow a piece of music and also to improvise on it. You can go in any direction in terms of genre and improvising.”

Her younger students are equally enthusiastic, and the feedback Thomas hears from parents and teachers is that the kids are happy they can just sit down and play. “They all want to visit the piano regularly. When they see a piano they will go to it and play around, which is exceptional. Most of my students are beginners but later on if they want to focus on a specific genre they would have many tools already. They would be light years ahead of most other people. Even in terms of analysis, they are absorbing song form and motivic development and they don’t even know it. They are getting advanced concepts and it is just a part of learning a song.”

Ikuko Watson’s two children, Zak, 10 and Taeo, seven, love the variety of music—from upbeat blues to Mama Mia—that they get to play. Watson is especially impressed with the progress and enthusiasm her kids display. “The process looks very natural and they are clever players, not just readers of music.”

To find out more about group lessons, lunch hour lessons for adults, private lessons, and SalsaSundays classes please contact Kelly Thomas at 250.338.8079 or [email protected]

Even without an instrument, hospital
piano instructor Kelly Thomas is musical. As she talks about how music has shaped and guided her life, her silver bracelets quietly chime together. And as she excitedly discusses the power of music and the inspiration she finds in sharing her musical passions with her students, her wrist symphony rises to a crescendo.

Nestled into a First Street green space, Thomas’ home and studio look out onto a small creek and the wildlife that use the space as a corridor to the Puntledge River. Thomas moved to the Valley from Edmonton two years ago and started teaching piano and salsa dancing. She had 25 years of experience as an accompanist but had only taught art—never piano—before this. “The traditional piano methods that I had learned with didn’t even remotely convey the feeling I had about music and where the joy, for me, is,” Thomas explains.

This joy comes in giving her students music as a lifelong companion and empowering them to find their own individual voice through music. She accomplishes this by using a non-traditional, or playing-based, method of teaching called Simply Music.

Simply Music was developed by an Australian musician, Neil Moore, who was given the challenge to teach a blind, eight-year-old boy to play the piano. So, Moore began to compose pieces and ‘distill’ them into patterns that he could translate directly into his student’s hands, and thus onto the keyboard.

Thomas glances toward her upright Steinway as she describes the process. “He touched his student’s hands and gave them a sequence. He explained that this is a pattern and you repeat the pattern and it goes up here and then down here. This motivic repetition, variation and development is the compositional and improvisational foundation for western popular, jazz and classical music.”

It sounds complicated but it is as natural as learning how to speak. Not only did Moore’s student excel through this method of teaching, he was able to pass on these lessons to his four-year-old sister, who was also blind. Moore began to share these techniques with other teachers and Simply Music was born.

“The idea here is that the teaching is not hinged on reading,” says Thomas, furthering her explanation by holding out her hands and saying: “Music is put into your hands and put directly onto the instrument, which then becomes part of a song and, from there, a part of your musical language for self expression.”

Neil Moore recognized a recurring problem with traditional reading-based approaches to teaching piano. How many people had piano lessons as kids and then abandon their lessons as soon as they are old enough to decide for themselves? In his article The Piano: Its Present and Future, pianist Jeffrey Chappell cites Morty Manus’s ponderings on the drop out rates for piano lessons. “There are statistics which indicate that 90 per cent of students who drop out still wish that they could play the piano. The future of the piano as a pedagogical instrument should consist of supportive, client-oriented approaches which recognize the study of music as a means for fulfillment and self-expression.”

Thomas couldn’t agree more. She pushes her curly hair back and leans forward to emphasize her next point: “This curriculum is designed to facilitate music as being a companion for life so that students will stick with it, so that music will be a friend, a source of solace, and an integral part of their entire lives.”

The Simply Music program covers popular music, classical, blues, gospel and accompaniment. The accompaniment aspect of Simply Music is important because it is, by its very definition, playing with another instrument. Thomas points out that “piano has generally been one person with one piano in a practice room.” She pauses here to sing a few scales. “But by learning accompaniment fairly early, it means that people can get together with other instrumentalists or vocalists, much the way guitar players do.”

This deep connection with a musical community is what Thomas has found in her own life, whether playing in a band or accompanying others. Thomas met her lifelong friend, the piano, at the age of seven with reading based lessons starting in Calgary and eventually in Yellowknife. She played both popular and conservatory pieces but didn’t participate in any of the exams until university where she went straight into the Grade 9 exam and came out with first class honors.

“The turning point for me,” Thomas recalls, “and I remember it so clearly, was when I was around 12 and I was playing this piece, a Christmas pop song.” She hums the tune, head bopping, hands tapping. “And I really couldn’t play it the way it was written so I just slightly modified it. In retrospect I can tell that I added a swing feel to it. I didn’t know that’s what it was—I just knew that that was how I heard the song. When I played it at the lesson, the piano teacher’s reaction was: ‘Hmmm, you can play it that way if you want to.’ Compare that to my next teacher, who was amazing and she said, ‘OK, look, if you can’t play it, fake it.’ What that meant to me was that you have to know: what the genre is, what is going on in the piece, where it is going, and what the form is so that you can get through without stopping and without anyone thinking ‘this person doesn’t know what they are doing.’ The idea is to make sure that you know what is going on so that you can play convincingly.”

Arriving in Edmonton, after growing up in Yellowknife, Thomas initially enrolled in the University of Alberta’s music program, but later switched to another highly successful music program offered by Grant MacEwan Community College. There she developed her music skills in the jazz program and cultivated her interest in a broad range of music.

Thomas’ belief in lifelong learning led her toward the education sector, where she began her career in television and video production with AccessTV, Alberta’s educational television station, whilst pursuing her avocation as a community choir accompanist. For 25 years she was the accompanist for the Ekos choir. “That was my main enjoyment,” she says with a tinge of nostalgic sadness. “It is a wonderful group of people from all walks of life who come together because they love to share music.”

Six years ago Thomas returned to university to finish her degree. Her major was fine arts and her minor was music with a focus on ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology is a branch of musicology defined as “the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts.” According to Thomas, the focus was immersion in the topic of study. “It’s not studying it in the third person, it is actually doing it. That is when I got involved in African dance and drumming and realized that many cultures pass on their music through means other than writing. This really resonated with me.”

To make ends meet while at school, Thomas hosted a classical music show on Alberta’s CKUA radio station. CKUA is a listener-funded radio station “with a tremendously broad range of programming in classical, jazz, folk, rock, world, alternative as well as educational segments”—a perfect fit for someone with Thomas’ background and predilections.

It was about this time that Thomas reconnected with another great love in her life: Cuban music. A Nigerian with a cockney accent and a PhD in genetics had started teaching Cuban salsa and it caught on like wildfire. “It is a hugely popular dance that is taking the whole world by storm,” Thomas says. “And, one of the best things about it is that you can go almost anywhere in the world and find a place to dance salsa.

“Playing music has been with me all my life and I feel so fortunate to have that. But,” Thomas confesses, “I never thought that I could dance. I was a total sports geek. Growing up in Yellowknife, all I seemed to do was train for competitive swimming. So, I never really got the opportunity to learn partner dancing. And let’s face it—musicians rarely get to dance, unless of course you’re Cuban.”

So, when a friend invited Thomas to come out to a Cuban salsa class she was amazed to discover how quickly she picked it up and, that suddenly Cuban music began to make a lot more sense. “I had heard Cuban music before and I was really interested in it but it was so complicated. The rhythms were fascinating but complex and I just didn’t get it. But, as soon as I learned to dance, it all became so much clearer because it is a music that is derived from dance. The music and the dance are inseparable. I started hearing things that I hadn’t heard before in the music so it was doubly great because I felt that I was expanding myself musically, plus I was starting to become more coordinated on the dance floor which was fabulous.”

When Thomas and her husband moved to Courtenay a few years ago they were happy to find that many in the community were interested in salsa and that, with their own experience in Cuban salsa, they had something to add. They began SalsaSundays and a drop in Friday night practice. “After learning salsa and enjoying it so much it would be terrible not to have it continue as part of our lives,” Thomas says. “We really just want to dance and socialize with people that love to salsa dance.”

Thomas’ shift from participant in music to teacher coincides with her move to the Comox Valley. Her commitment to contributing to the musical community is evident in her other endeavours: pianist with the Georgia Straight Big Band and flautist with the Comox Valley Concert Band.

And how has the Comox Valley responded to these new teachings? “So far, I am just so thrilled with how things are going,” Thomas says with a huge smile. “I have a lot of kids in my Simply Music lessons, but I also really enjoy working with adults because they bring so much life experience to what they want to express. They ask really interesting questions and want to know the history and the ethnomusicology behind the pieces. It is also a great activity for adults because it keeps the mind sharp. It opens up whole new avenues in your brain when you learn something new.”

One of Thomas’ students, Janet Rogers, has thoroughly enjoyed coming back to playing the piano as an adult student.  “Kelly’s passion for music, her patience with me as a ‘mature’ student and her innovative ways of teaching, have produced remarkable results,” Rogers says. “She ignites in me a joy to connect with music and then she provides the structure to let that musicality flow out to the piano.”

In their first couple of lessons, Thomas taught Rogers some basic movements on the piano and some terminology. By the third lesson, Rogers was learning the blues form and in the first year she learned a number of well known classical pieces, accompaniment, major, minor, seventh and thirteenth cords, some popular pieces, and a number of pieces that she wanted to learn that weren’t part of the core curriculum.

Students in the first year are getting accustomed to playing and recognizing how to learn pieces. “You are learning how to learn,” she explains. “In the first year you don’t look at any sheet music. You just play. By about a year and half you’re learning how to write and read rhythm. Into the second year you learn how to read music based on what you know how to play. When you learn to read the music, the world really opens up. It is like learning any language where you learn to speak and then to read. When you learn to read music, you already have a vocabulary. It makes it so much easier to follow a piece of music and also to improvise on it. You can go in any direction in terms of genre and improvising.”

Her younger students are equally enthusiastic, and the feedback Thomas hears from parents and teachers is that the kids are happy they can just sit down and play. “They all want to visit the piano regularly. When they see a piano they will go to it and play around, which is exceptional. Most of my students are beginners but later on if they want to focus on a specific genre they would have many tools already. They would be light years ahead of most other people. Even in terms of analysis, they are absorbing song form and motivic development and they don’t even know it. They are getting advanced concepts and it is just a part of learning a song.”

Ikuko Watson’s two children, Zak, 10 and Taeo, seven, love the variety of music—from upbeat blues to Mama Mia—that they get to play. Watson is especially impressed with the progress and enthusiasm her kids display. “The process looks very natural and they are clever players, not just readers of music.”

To find out more about group lessons, lunch hour lessons for adults, private lessons, and SalsaSundays classes please contact Kelly Thomas at 250.338.8097 or [email protected]

Arguably of all the symbols that mark the advent of the Christmas season, few are more ubiquitous than the Salvation Army kettle. And why not?  Christmas, in its true meaning, is about ‘giving’ and blessedly the people of the Comox Valley are mighty generous in caring for the wants and needs of the less fortunate among us.

Since its beginning in London’s East End, two years before Canadian Confederation, the Salvation Army has become a worldwide non-government provider of social services. The Canadian Salvation Army began in 1882, and the pastoral mission came to the Comox Valley in 1964.

“Christmas is our main fundraiser,” says Pastor Darryl Burry, lead pastor of the Comox Valley Missions.  “Funds raised during the Christmas season are utilized throughout the entire year.  Our goal is to meet human needs, and our challenge is how we practically put it all in place.”

That is in itself a tall order in that the ‘Sally Ann’, as it is popularly referred to and not impolitely, has many irons in the fire of giving to the public.  The homeless shelter on Pidcock Avenue (Salvation Army supported and operated, with assistance from BC Housing) is in huge demand in these economically perilous days, and the Family Services Centre is also meeting major challenges in caring for the wants and needs of the dispossessed.

“Our goal at Christmas is to see that there is nobody falling through the cracks,” Burry says. “Right now registrations are ongoing for our hamper program.  Last year we distributed 650 hampers, and this year it will be a matter of greater demand as the need for social assistance is up 25 per cent over last year.  Our caseworker in Family Services says that the stories are heartbreaking in which highly skilled people are jobless, homeless and subsisting on a pittance.”

The challenge always, Burry says, is to treat people in need with dignity and respect, regardless of how they ended up in a position of want.  Some end up in homeless poverty due to job loss, family illness or other misfortune.  Others lose it all due to abuse of drugs or alcohol.  None of those circumstances matter to the Salvation Army in terms of giving assistance, Burry stresses.

“A lot of us, when we haven’t been exposed to the other side of the tracks, don’t realize that the majority of people currently living in our community are one mere paycheque away from solvency,” he says.  “So, if the job is lost—and many have been—people are left in a desperate situation.”

The Salvation Army’s philosophy in terms of giving is that they strive to give a “hand up” rather than a “hand out,” Burry says.  That philosophy goes back to Salvation Army founder William Booth, who believed that despite the fact the organization is a Christian mission, the first thing a person needs in getting that hand up is his or her physical health.

“That is our mission,” Burry says.  “We act as the hands and feet of Jesus for those who are temporarily unable to act as they would wish due to their deprivation.”

Back to the kettle campaign. This year’s goal for the Comox Valley is to raise $70,000, Burry says.  He adds that all funds raised in this community stay within this community.

Does the $70,000 get the job done?  Not really, Burry says.  Last year the shelter cost more than $100,000 just in food products, so there is obviously a gap in revenue.

“On the other hand, this is a very generous community,” he says.  “We’ve been blessed over the years by the generosity of the community. Last year, for example, we were 45 per cent behind in our kettle campaign.  We ran a media release stating that fact, and after that ran we ended up surpassing our goal.  People should understand that even if they only have a few pennies to spare, those pennies can have a big impact.”

This year the kettles will be in eight locations in the community.  The campaign itself began on November 20, and beginning in the first week of December, the drive runs six days a week.  Local kettle sites are Wal-Mart, Superstore, Safeway, Canadian Tire, Quality Foods and the three government liquor stores.  The liquor store locations are especially fruitful, Burry adds.

Although the majority of the kettle minders are volunteers, Burry says it is necessary for the Salvation Army to hire some paid staff to cover all the hours demanded, which works out to 1,600 hours.  The work is all in the capable hands of staff member Dawn, he says, who coordinates the kettles, the teams and the schedule of shifts, and so forth.  A demanding chore.

While the kettle campaign is a vital fundraiser for the Salvation Army, much of the essential revenue emanates from the familiar thrift stores in Courtenay and Comox.

“The thrift stores enable us to carry on,” Burry says. “But, even with them, like with any other business these days, the overhead continues to rise.  But, people should remember that when one donates items to the stores, or makes a purchase, that enables us to feed somebody in need.”