Service Organizations Hire Locally
I just had a meeting with Samaritans Purse. You may remember them as being one of the first service organizations that arrived after the fire. They came to help ‘sift the ashes’ of burned homes to try to retrieve any possible sentimental or valuable keepsakes. They were very helpful.
They’ve just hired a new person to continue working in the area. Leila Lewis (of our local Lewis quarry family) is brand new (so give her a bit of time to come up to speed please) and she will be a resource for anyone in the area to help with wildfire related issues of any kind.
United Way also has hired a local to coordinate it’s efforts in the community. Leigh Schaffer of Scotch Creek is that person. It’s great that these groups, Samaritans Purse, Mennonite Disaster Services (building homes here), and United Way are here to help our recovery. They have been a massive help over the last 7 months, and will continue to do so. I’ll put up a list of contacts on the Recovery page on my website, NorthShuswap.Info
2 thoughts on “Service Organizations Hire Locally”
Me and my husband had the pleasure working with Samaritan’s Purse after the devastating fire. This very professional organization is a god send helping people through their loss! We met so many amazing people coming out to help complete strangers, some as far as New Brunswick, USA, other provinces and BC resident from all over, putting their lives on hold to help out. We lost our house in Celista and needed something to keep busy. Helping homeowners to find their a keepsakes and/or memories and listening to the homeowners stories and their lives was a heart wrenching as well as helping the homeowners and us heal. We could relate to these people and realized that this disaster brought us together in our great community which became Shuswap Strong. I hope no one ever has to go through this experience dealing with the loss, the rebuilding of your house on paper, spending hours of listing your contents, hours of travelling to businesses to replace your items, dealing with insurance companies and adjusters while knowing that this all consuming energy, stress and time spent should not have been because of the cause of this unnecessary fire. I have had people who did not lose their homes tell me they have survival guilt. I keep telling those people our community is very lucky having these homes that did not burn and some our infrastructures so that we can start rebuilding our great community otherwise the whole area would have been abandoned. Look at the other areas that have completely been wiped out by fire a couple of years ago, they are still looking to get started rebuilding and trying to reestablish their community. This Spring will be a very busy one with the sound of large equipment, hammers and saws trying to put the citizens of the North Shuswap lives back. It will never be the same but this strong community working together, will make it a whole community once again. I know I have thanked Jay for all his help through all this but one more time, “THANK YOU JAY FOR YOUR DEDICATION TO THE NORTH SHUSWAP AREA!” “THANK YOU TO THE BRAVE LOCALS AND THE BRAVE LOCAL FIREMEN WHO FOUGHT FIRES AND THOSE BRAVE LOCALS THAT HELPED IN OTHER WAYS SAVING WHAT THEY COULD, GIVING US A REASON TO REBUILD.”
Kathy your comments are encouraging to all of us here in the Shuswap. Thank you 🥰