It is not your typical farmhouse overlooking a typical farm. Instead of miles of rolling pasture dotted with grazing cattle, the ‘farmhouse’ at Mac’s Oysters Ltd. in Fanny Bay overlooks the ocean. If you watch closely, you will spot the occasional seal popping up for a breath of fresh air. There are cormorants and other sea birds bopping along on the waves. Instead of crowing roosters and cackling hens, you will hear the cacophonic cries of seagulls and the chirps of a bald eagle as he surveys his territory from a vantage point atop a nearby cedar.
Established in 1947 by Scottish immigrant, Joseph McLellan, Mac’s oyster farm is still owned and operated by the McLellan family. According to his grandson, Gordy McLellan, the company now employs more than 50 people and ships a whopping 80,000 pounds of shellfish to market every week (a total of more than four million pounds per year). In addition to the Fanny Bay location, Mac’s has operations on the shores of Quadra Island, as well as five locations on the Sunshine Coast.
Although the McLellans and other BC shellfish farmers harvest their product from the sea, the ocean floor is Crown Land, owned by the Government of Canada. Each farmer leases the ‘land’ and is responsible for operating their shellfish farm in their designated deep water and intertidal beach areas in an environmentally responsible manner.
The piles of broken oyster shells and stacks of empty oyster crates beside each and every oyster shack are a testament to the resiliency of this industry. Despite the fact they have not seen a price increase in many years, shellfish farms on Vancouver Island are still surviving. And, just so you know, those heaps of oyster shells you see outside each oyster shack are not trash. Some of the empty shells are used to ‘plant’ and grow new oysters on. The rest of the discarded shells are crushed and used as biodegradable landscaping material or ground up as a calcium supplement for chicken feed. This is a sustainable industry where nothing is wasted.
On the coast of Vancouver Island and the BC mainland there are dozens of oyster shacks like Mac’s, where ‘aquaculture’ not ‘agriculture’ is the business focus. There are five main regions in BC where commercial oysters are produced: the Discovery Islands, on the BC coast across from Campbell River; Okeover Inlet and the Sunshine Coast, south of Powell River; Baynes Sound, including Fanny Bay and Baynes Bay; West Coast Vancouver Island, south of Ucluelet; and the Southern Gulf Islands, just north of Sidney.
“Shellfish farming in general—and oyster farming in particular—have been major contributors to the BC economy for almost 100 years,” explains the BC Shellfish Growers Association’s executive director, Roberta Stevenson. “The Association was established 62 years ago to act as a governing body to represent the business and environmental interests of shellfish farmers and their industry partners. Today the industry directly employs 1,000 people in BC and produces in excess of $40 million worth of shellfish annually. We are financially supported by our 180-plus members, along with occasional grants from the government.”
It is interesting to note that the specific oyster species that have made BC a world-renowned oyster producer are not native to these waters. The very thing that makes our oysters so meaty and delicious—our nutrient rich, cold, clean water—also limits oyster spawning and reproduction. So, in the early 1900s, shellfish farmers began importing larger and faster-growing oyster ‘seed’ from commercial producers. The seed may be from ‘Pacific’ oysters but is imported from warmer regions, like Hawaii.
The Olympia oyster is native to this region but is not suitable for commercial production as it is generally quite small and irregularly shaped. This makes them difficult to market on a commercial scale, though they are still delicious. Many Islanders consider it a special treat to be able to harvest and enjoy native Olympia oysters. And, according to the Capital Regional District of Southern Vancouver Island, Olympia oysters were an important food source for First Nations people, who harvested them from estuaries, saltwater lagoons, tidal flats and other protected areas, such as pocket beaches.
Today, it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are a highlight on the menu of an upscale restaurant, steaming in a fire pit on a remote beach, farmed, or harvested from the wild, the funny thing about oysters is that people either love them—or not.
People who love oysters enjoy them in a variety of ways—they slurp them raw right off the shells, they slather them with hot sauce, they dip them in batter and drop them in a deep fryer, or they toss them on the barbeque to savor their steamy flavor. And, just as each individual’s taste in oyster toppings and presentation varies, oysters from various regions of British Columbia develop their own distinct flavors and unique culinary characteristics, too.
“Just like wine, oysters owe much of their flavor to the terroir or merrior of each growing region,” explains Stevenson. “There are three key factors that influence the flavor and texture of BC oysters: the growing environment, the growing depth (which affects water temperature) and the farming technique—beach versus deep water or a combination of both. Developing the Pacific Kiss brand was how we decided to promote this fact.”
In 2009, months before the Province of British Columbia was set to take centre stage by hosting the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the BCSGA embarked on a special project that would showcase BC fresh oysters to the world. With the support of the various shellfish growers and a grant from Western Economic Diversification’s Community Adjustment Fund and Coast Sustainable Trust, the Association developed a creative a marketing campaign to brand our world-famous oysters with a ‘Pacific Kiss’.
Launching the Pacific Kiss promotion during the Winter Olympics was perfect timing, considering that BC oysters are their most flavorful in February and that both the Olympics and oysters have a connection to the time of the Roman Empire. It is believed that ancient Roman Emperors kept a steady supply of oysters on hand for great feasts and visiting guests. Casanova, the famed 18th century Italian lover, reportedly started his day by consuming 50 oysters for breakfast.
As part of the Pacific Kiss campaign, each oyster producer was asked to create names for their oysters. The oyster farmers did not disappoint. Some, for example, were given names that linked them to their specific region and/or producer, such as Mac’s Beach, Pearl Bay and Ship’s Point. Others were given fanciful names that were tantalizingly poetic, like Beach Angels or Summer Breeze. One name honored our Salish First Nations people—the Sinku, which means clear running water in Salish.
Branding BC oysters with a ‘Kiss of Approval’ is assurance for consumers, restaurateurs and exporters that the oysters they buy are an environmentally sustainable seafood choice. The Pacific Kiss stamp authenticates them as World Class, top quality BC oysters, mussels, clams or scallops that are a delicious and nutritious food choice. As importantly, it is assurance that the product was grown at an environmentally sustainable farm by a registered member of the British Columbia Shellfish Association.
The Pacific Kiss promotion focused on three target audiences. The first was international visitors and local diners who were introduced to a gourmet dining experience featuring a platter of a dozen Pacific Kiss oysters from 12 different areas. The Pacific Kiss Platter was served in restaurants on Vancouver Island (including several in the Comox Valley) and in the cities in and around Vancouver. A flyer that identified each oyster’s location on the plate, the regions where they were grown, and their unique culinary qualities accompanied each platter. The dining experience was interactive and fun, much like a wine tasting, and created a wonderful dialogue about food in general and BC oysters in particular.
Mac's Oysters
Photo by Boomer Jerritt
As a result of this special campaign, on Valentine’s Day 2010, oyster lovers in Vancouver devoured an astonishing 500,000 raw oysters! As expected, many of those oysters were consumed and enjoyed by Olympic visitors from other nations. The program will continue in 2011 and the Pacific Kiss Platter is expected to get rave reviews again this Valentine’s Day and in the months to come.
The second focus was to use the Pacific Kiss promotion to educate chefs about BC oysters. It is important that chefs understand that buying BC oysters is supportive of local growers, similar to how we have been educated to support fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate. On September 10, 2010, BCSGA introduced BC oysters and the Pacific Kiss promotion to more than 500 chefs from across Canada who attended the Chefs’ Congress in the Cowichan Valley.
“When you take 12 different Pacific Kiss oysters from various regions in British Columbia, taste each of them and experience their differences, you start to better appreciate the industry. As chefs, we are now able to form relationships with individual BC shellfish farmers who produce some of the best shellfish in the world,” says Robert Clark, executive chef of C Restaurant in Vancouver.
The third target is the people of British Columbia, in an effort to foster local pride in and knowledge of the product. “The people of British Columbia should be thankful that we live in a part of the world with waters that are pristine enough to support a viable shellfish industry,” explains Stevenson. “Not only do these farmers provide a delicious and nutritious local food product, they export it around the world and play a significant role in supporting the local economy.
“From a food safety perspective, all BC shellfish is grown under stringent Canadian standards and all fresh or frozen product is certified for export to the US and other international markets,” she adds.
“All products are tagged at harvest to ensure full traceability. In addition, both the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise program and SeaChoice recognize BC shellfish for adhering to responsible environmental codes of practice and providing consumers with a best option for seafood selection. It is our hope that the Pacific Kiss campaign will remind Islanders that BC oysters are not just something to enjoy—they are something we should all be proud of.”
FMI: BC Shellfish Growers Association, www.bcsga.ca or call 250.890.7561.
Celebrate the Sea! The BC Shellfish Growers Association invites you to come and celebrate the bounty of the sea at the 5th Annual Shellfish Festival. The Gala Dinner will be held June 17th at the historic Filberg Lodge and Park and the day-long festival will be June 18th at the Comox Marina. More than 4,000 people are expected to attend this year’s event to sample shellfish from various producers, learn about the industry and have fun.
“In addition to all of the regular events and activities, this year’s Shellfish Festival will feature the BC Oyster Shucking Championship, live entertainment, cooking demos, lots of fresh shellfish and the Seafood Chowder Challenge for Comox Valley restaurants,” says the Festival’s Executive Director Matthew Wright. “You also won’t want to miss the Chefs’ Dinner. 200 guests will be treated to a gourmet six-course meal served by some of BC’s top chefs who have been partnered up with a shellfish grower to bring you their combined culinary delights.” FMI: www.bcshellfishfestival.ca
It is not your typical farmhouse overlooking a typical farm. Instead of miles of rolling pasture dotted with grazing cattle, search
the ‘farmhouse’ at Mac’s Oysters Ltd. in Fanny Bay overlooks the ocean. If you watch closely, ambulance
you will spot the occasional seal popping up for a breath of fresh air. There are cormorants and other sea birds bopping along on the waves. Instead of crowing roosters and cackling hens, you will hear the cacophonic cries of seagulls and the chirps of a bald eagle as he surveys his territory from a vantage point atop a nearby cedar.
Established in 1947 by Scottish immigrant, Joseph McLellan, Mac’s oyster farm is still owned and operated by the McLellan family. According to his grandson, Gordy McLellan, the company now employs more than 50 people and ships a whopping 80,000 pounds of shellfish to market every week (a total of more than four million pounds per year). In addition to the Fanny Bay location, Mac’s has operations on the shores of Quadra Island, as well as five locations on the Sunshine Coast.
Although the McLellans and other BC shellfish farmers harvest their product from the sea, the ocean floor is Crown Land, owned by the Government of Canada. Each farmer leases the ‘land’ and is responsible for operating their shellfish farm in their designated deep water and intertidal beach areas in an environmentally responsible manner.
The piles of broken oyster shells and stacks of empty oyster crates beside each and every oyster shack are a testament to the resiliency of this industry. Despite the fact they have not seen a price increase in many years, shellfish farms on Vancouver Island are still surviving. And, just so you know, those heaps of oyster shells you see outside each oyster shack are not trash. Some of the empty shells are used to ‘plant’ and grow new oysters on. The rest of the discarded shells are crushed and used as biodegradable landscaping material or ground up as a calcium supplement for chicken feed. This is a sustainable industry where nothing is wasted.
On the coast of Vancouver Island and the BC mainland there are dozens of oyster shacks like Mac’s, where ‘aquaculture’ not ‘agriculture’ is the business focus. There are five main regions in BC where commercial oysters are produced: the Discovery Islands, on the BC coast across from Campbell River; Okeover Inlet and the Sunshine Coast, south of Powell River; Baynes Sound, including Fanny Bay and Baynes Bay; West Coast Vancouver Island, south of Ucluelet; and the Southern Gulf Islands, just north of Sidney.
“Shellfish farming in general—and oyster farming in particular—have been major contributors to the BC economy for almost 100 years,” explains the BC Shellfish Growers Association’s executive director, Roberta Stevenson. “The Association was established 62 years ago to act as a governing body to represent the business and environmental interests of shellfish farmers and their industry partners. Today the industry directly employs 1,000 people in BC and produces in excess of $40 million worth of shellfish annually. We are financially supported by our 180-plus members, along with occasional grants from the government.”
It is interesting to note that the specific oyster species that have made BC a world-renowned oyster producer are not native to these waters. The very thing that makes our oysters so meaty and delicious—our nutrient rich, cold, clean water—also limits oyster spawning and reproduction. So, in the early 1900s, shellfish farmers began importing larger and faster-growing oyster ‘seed’ from commercial producers. The seed may be from ‘Pacific’ oysters but is imported from warmer regions, like Hawaii.
The Olympia oyster is native to this region but is not suitable for commercial production as it is generally quite small and irregularly shaped. This makes them difficult to market on a commercial scale, though they are still delicious. Many Islanders consider it a special treat to be able to harvest and enjoy native Olympia oysters. And, according to the Capital Regional District of Southern Vancouver Island, Olympia oysters were an important food source for First Nations people, who harvested them from estuaries, saltwater lagoons, tidal flats and other protected areas, such as pocket beaches.
Today, it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are a highlight on the menu of an upscale restaurant, steaming in a fire pit on a remote beach, farmed, or harvested from the wild, the funny thing about oysters is that people either love them—or not.
People who love oysters enjoy them in a variety of ways—they slurp them raw right off the shells, they slather them with hot sauce, they dip them in batter and drop them in a deep fryer, or they toss them on the barbeque to savor their steamy flavor. And, just as each individual’s taste in oyster toppings and presentation varies, oysters from various regions of British Columbia develop their own distinct flavors and unique culinary characteristics, too.
“Just like wine, oysters owe much of their flavor to the terroir or merrior of each growing region,” explains Stevenson. “There are three key factors that influence the flavor and texture of BC oysters: the growing environment, the growing depth (which affects water temperature) and the farming technique—beach versus deep water or a combination of both. Developing the Pacific Kiss brand was how we decided to promote this fact.”
In 2009, months before the Province of British Columbia was set to take centre stage by hosting the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the BCSGA embarked on a special project that would showcase BC fresh oysters to the world. With the support of the various shellfish growers and a grant from Western Economic Diversification’s Community Adjustment Fund and Coast Sustainable Trust, the Association developed a creative a marketing campaign to brand our world-famous oysters with a ‘Pacific Kiss’.
Launching the Pacific Kiss promotion during the Winter Olympics was perfect timing, considering that BC oysters are their most flavorful in February and that both the Olympics and oysters have a connection to the time of the Roman Empire. It is believed that ancient Roman Emperors kept a steady supply of oysters on hand for great feasts and visiting guests. Casanova, the famed 18th century Italian lover, reportedly started his day by consuming 50 oysters for breakfast.
As part of the Pacific Kiss campaign, each oyster producer was asked to create names for their oysters. The oyster farmers did not disappoint. Some, for example, were given names that linked them to their specific region and/or producer, such as Mac’s Beach, Pearl Bay and Ship’s Point. Others were given fanciful names that were tantalizingly poetic, like Beach Angels or Summer Breeze. One name honored our Salish First Nations people—the Sinku, which means clear running water in Salish.
Branding BC oysters with a ‘Kiss of Approval’ is assurance for consumers, restaurateurs and exporters that the oysters they buy are an environmentally sustainable seafood choice. The Pacific Kiss stamp authenticates them as World Class, top quality BC oysters, mussels, clams or scallops that are a delicious and nutritious food choice. As importantly, it is assurance that the product was grown at an environmentally sustainable farm by a registered member of the British Columbia Shellfish Association.
The Pacific Kiss promotion focused on three target audiences. The first was international visitors and local diners who were introduced to a gourmet dining experience featuring a platter of a dozen Pacific Kiss oysters from 12 different areas. The Pacific Kiss Platter was served in restaurants on Vancouver Island (including several in the Comox Valley) and in the cities in and around Vancouver. A flyer that identified each oyster’s location on the plate, the regions where they were grown, and their unique culinary qualities accompanied each platter. The dining experience was interactive and fun, much like a wine tasting, and created a wonderful dialogue about food in general and BC oysters in particular.
As a result of this special campaign, on Valentine’s Day 2010, oyster lovers in Vancouver devoured an astonishing 500,000 raw oysters! As expected, many of those oysters were consumed and enjoyed by Olympic visitors from other nations. The program will continue in 2011 and the Pacific Kiss Platter is expected to get rave reviews again this Valentine’s Day and in the months to come.
The second focus was to use the Pacific Kiss promotion to educate chefs about BC oysters. It is important that chefs understand that buying BC oysters is supportive of local growers, similar to how we have been educated to support fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate. On September 10, 2010, BCSGA introduced BC oysters and the Pacific Kiss promotion to more than 500 chefs from across Canada who attended the Chefs’ Congress in the Cowichan Valley.
“When you take 12 different Pacific Kiss oysters from various regions in British Columbia, taste each of them and experience their differences, you start to better appreciate the industry. As chefs, we are now able to form relationships with individual BC shellfish farmers who produce some of the best shellfish in the world,” says Robert Clark, executive chef of C Restaurant in Vancouver.
The third target is the people of British Columbia, in an effort to foster local pride in and knowledge of the product. “The people of British Columbia should be thankful that we live in a part of the world with waters that are pristine enough to support a viable shellfish industry,” explains Stevenson. “Not only do these farmers provide a delicious and nutritious local food product, they export it around the world and play a significant role in supporting the local economy.
“From a food safety perspective, all BC shellfish is grown under stringent Canadian standards and all fresh or frozen product is certified for export to the US and other international markets,” she adds.
“All products are tagged at harvest to ensure full traceability. In addition, both the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise program and SeaChoice recognize BC shellfish for adhering to responsible environmental codes of practice and providing consumers with a best option for seafood selection. It is our hope that the Pacific Kiss campaign will remind Islanders that BC oysters are not just something to enjoy—they are something we should all be proud of.”
FMI: BC Shellfish Growers Association, www.bcsga.ca or call 250.890.7561.
Celebrate the Sea! The BC Shellfish Growers Association invites you to come and celebrate the bounty of the sea at the 5th Annual Shellfish Festival. The Gala Dinner will be held June 17th at the historic Filberg Lodge and Park and the day-long festival will be June 18th at the Comox Marina. More than 4,000 people are expected to attend this year’s event to sample shellfish from various producers, learn about the industry and have fun.
“In addition to all of the regular events and activities, this year’s Shellfish Festival will feature the BC Oyster Shucking Championship, live entertainment, cooking demos, lots of fresh shellfish and the Seafood Chowder Challenge for Comox Valley restaurants,” says the Festival’s Executive Director Matthew Wright. “You also won’t want to miss the Chefs’ Dinner. 200 guests will be treated to a gourmet six-course meal served by some of BC’s top chefs who have been partnered up with a shellfish grower to bring you their combined culinary delights.” FMI: www.bcshellfishfestival.ca
The students at George P. Vanier Secondary School in Courtenay lug extra-heavy backpacks to school for several weeks each December. Principal Charlie Schellinck watches them with a mixture of pride and nostalgia as they make their way to their classrooms and drop food donations into the Sharing the Christmas Spirit collection boxes.
It is not just Vanier students that are carrying extra food to school this time of year. Almost every classroom in every school throughout Districts 71 and 93, and the Christian School, are involved with the program. Of the 650 hampers distributed every Christmas, close to 300 come from local schools. Individuals, churches, businesses, service clubs and community groups sponsor the rest. The Salvation Army has a similar hamper program and distributes an additional 750-plus hampers to families in our community.
For Schellinck, Sharing the Christmas Spirit brings back bittersweet memories of Christmases past. Today, most people identify the program with the Coast Realty Group but it was Schellinck’s mother, Tucky, who was the inspiration for this particular program. Tucky started distributing food and clothing to people in the Comox Valley in 1962. By the 1970s, with the help of many volunteers and the Catholic Women’s League, the program had expanded to include several hundred Christmas hampers. In 1987, for example, records show that 772 hampers were distributed to a total of 2,765 Comox Valley residents and more than $40,000 in cash donations was received. All of this was orchestrated from the basement of the Schellinck’s family home.
“Our basement,” explains Schellinck, “was always stuffed with food, gifts and clothing for people in need. My father, Hank, was the principal at Vanier at the time and both mom and dad were very involved with the Catholic Church. We learned from an early age to consider the needs of others first. I will never forget the time when I was a boy and we were sitting down as a family to enjoy a nice home cooked meal. There was an unexpected knock at the door and Mom opened it to find a young man on our doorstep asking for food to feed his hungry family. She gathered the food right off our table, packaged it up and gave it to him. I don’t remember what we ate that night… but I think his family enjoyed roast beef.”
Schellinck’s sister, Marian Duke, agrees. “The really neat thing about our mom was that she was always giving,” adds Duke. “Our mother truly put the giving spirit of Christmas into perspective for us. We were so proud when she was recognized for her lifelong commitment of caring and was honored with the Order of Canada in 1988. Not one to want to be in the limelight, she accepted the award on behalf of all of the volunteers in the Comox Valley.”
In 1988, Hank Schellinck retired and he and Tucky moved from their home on McPhee Avenue to a beach house. The idea was that Mrs. Schellinck would also retire and stop collecting for the food hampers. She recruited husband and wife realtor team, Brent and Donna Cunliffe, to take over the program—keeping an ever-watchful eye on their progress. Later, the Cunliffe’s became part of the Coast Realty Group and the effort was re-named the Sharing the Christmas Spirit Hamper Program. It is now a registered not-for-profit society.
In 1998, Rob Phillips moved from Vancouver to the Comox Valley and joined Coast Realty. He was assigned to be coordinator for School District 71’s hamper collection program. When the Cunliffe’s retired in 2009, Phillips was voted by acclamation to oversee the entire program.
Phillips explains that Sharing the Christmas Spirit is now a massive community effort that has long outgrown a basement. Every year the call goes out to the community for the donation of at least 3,500-square feet of warehouse space to store and sort donations. “It is always a challenge to find space,” says Phillips, “but someone always comes through.”
Once space is secured, Budget Rent-a-Car donates the use of a moving truck and hampers are collected from the schools. Over a period of 18 days straight an army of volunteers, coordinated by Ken and Fay Jones, put in long hours to ensure that every hamper has all of the necessary items. The Liquor Control Licensing Branch donates hundreds of stuffed toys; Dairyland provides several hundred litres of milk, and Courtenay Country Market, the local media and a number of other local businesses contribute time, funds, products or discounts on merchandise.
On delivery day—this year it is December 22—a posse of more than 100 volunteer drivers arrive to pick up and deliver two big rubber totes filled with food, gifts and community spirit to each of the selected individuals and families registered with the program. The hampers are delivered to homes from Fanny Bay to Black Creek, as well as Courtenay, Comox and Cumberland. In the past, a few hampers have even been delivered to Denman and Hornby Islands. The total value of this effort is now in excess of $100,000.
The Coast Realty hamper program is only one of several goodwill initiatives in the Comox Valley. To avoid duplicating services and ensure as many people as possible benefit from the various programs, Coast Realty works in cooperation with the Salvation Army and others to compare and streamline lists of potential recipients.
Dian Smit, owner of North Island Nerds on Site, says that words alone can not express how emotionally overwhelming it is to be on the receiving end of a Christmas hamper.
Smit’s two sons are now grown up and she is successfully operating a home-based business that provides mobile computer support to businesses and individuals, but there was a time in her life where it was hard to be optimistic about what the future might hold. Christmas, for her, was just an ominous date on the family calendar, a reminder of how difficult it was going to be to be able to afford food, let alone gifts, for her children. For six consecutive years, receiving a Christmas hamper a few days before Christmas gave her hope.
“It was a couple of years after my divorce,” recalls Smit. “I was a single mom on social assistance with two pre-school age boys. I began looking for a job when the boys started school. I had graduated from high school and earned a computer sciences diploma from Camosun College in Victoria, so finding a job should have been easy. However, during the eight years I was busy raising my boys, the computer industry had made a dramatic shift from mainframes to personal computers. My skills and knowledge were outdated.”
For the next three-and-a-half years, Smit attended North Island College and worked between semesters to earn money. For the first couple of years, Smit signed up for the hamper program on her own. Later, when she felt she was managing okay, she did not. Someone in the community, however, recognized her struggle and put her name on the list as a gesture of kindness and support.
“The hampers provided me with enough food for about three weeks,” explains Smit. “In addition to lifting my sprits, it gave my food budget a break and enabled me to buy warm clothes for the boys and to have some extra money to pay the hydro bill. Most people don’t realize it but things like shampoo and toilet paper that we normally take for granted are a most welcome addition to the hampers. Every donation to a food bank or hamper program is appreciated. Two packages of spaghetti and a bag of oatmeal go a long way to feed a family. Getting the staples—like flour and sugar—was very much appreciated. Getting something extraordinary—like chocolate chips so we could make Christmas cookies—was a welcome surprise.
“And the gifts… the gifts were always amazing!” Smit recalls, her voice cracking with emotion. “I don’t know how they ever picked them out but they were always perfect. Every year, the day the hampers arrived, I cried happy tears of gratitude and relief.”
It has been more than 10 years since Smit has received a hamper but she says that she will never forget how much it meant to her family. She shared her story with InFocus because she feels it is important to clarify that people who receive community support like this are not burdens to society. They are just regular people who are down on their luck and need some help. A hamper is a ‘hand up’ not a ‘hand out’.
Smit’s heart-felt gratitude has now fostered into a spirit of giving back. On November 23, 2010, she partnered with Kathy Birkett Virtual Assistant and Beth Campbell Duke Personal Branding to host a social media class at Serious Coffee in Courtenay. Admission was by donation of non-perishable food items to the ‘Fill the Beetle, Feed the People’ food bank program supported by Nerds on Site in communities around the world. Smit was all smiles when she drove her red polka-dot Volkswagen beetle to the food bank to deliver a trunk full of food the next morning.
Sharing the giving spirit of Christmas in the Comox Valley is not always done through non-profit groups and community associations. Many people make an effort to brighten the lives of others in small but impactful ways.
“I practice random acts of kindness throughout the year,” says Darlene Goodrick, “but I do remember one year, I had made up some mugs filled with chocolates and candy. I gave one to a homeless woman outside the bank and she was so happy to get something. It felt good to be able to bring joy to someone. I later found out that her name was Ruby and that she had been in the hospital for an extended period of time and, when she got out, all her belongings had been sold for rent owed. She had no home and no possessions. That was such a sad story and I was glad that I had been able to bring a tiny bit of joy to her life on that wintery day.”
Carolyn Price-Touhey of Two Eagles Lodge in Union Bay says she and her husband Steve now share the spirit of Christmas by adopting an open door policy on Christmas day.
“We moved here several years ago from the state of Maryland,” explains Price-Touhey. With so many of our Island friends being away from family, we invite them to join us for Christmas—either dinner, a drink, dessert—just an open door on a holiday that is not usually an open house day. That way, all of us transplants can become one big family. The tradition started in 2006, after our neighbors invited us to share Easter and other holidays with them. When they moved from the area, we opened the invitation up to others. Lots of people come… some of them we know well and others we hardly know at all. It is always a blast.”
Karen Provost of ReMax recalls another story that exemplifies the Christmas spirit.
“One year, a colleague and I were asked to make Christmas special for a local Comox resident who was bedridden and dying of cancer,” recalls Provost. “So, while she was sleeping, we crept onto her deck and decorated it with cedar boughs, ornaments, lights, baubles and angels. There was one wreath that was a little heavy and we needed a nail to hang it on. We looked around and found one single shiny new nail and were both surprised. Just when we needed it, there it was! As daylight turned to dusk, we plugged in the lights and the family opened the curtains for our friend as she awoke. We had tears and hugs all around and it was an extremely touching moment. Years later, I still pass that home and fondly remember how it felt to be a part of making one family’s last Christmas with their loved one so memorable.”
Adds Lauren MacLauclan, from the Law of Attraction Training Room: “By intentionally and genuinely giving to others, or by expressing thankfulness and appreciation in any way, shape or form, you will be getting back what you are giving out.
“That is the essence and spirit of true giving. It is a circle. It blesses both the giver and the receiver. It is evidence of ‘whatever comes around goes around’.”