Volunteering

When I took the buy-out from Victoria’s Times Colonist after over two decades as their popular music columnist and later, Go-Explore page and travel writer, I never imagined I’d spend the rest of my life as a volunteer fundraiser and community organizer. I’ve always been a freelance writer – in college a couple times, the old Oak Bay Star, Monday way back when, then, despite my union designation as “permanent part-time,” at the Times Colonist. I’m still freelancing and a regular contributor to several Canadian magazines.

For 15 years before my writing career, beginning in 1970, I co-owned and co-managed Victoria’s first organic food store, “earth house hold natural foods” in Oak Bay Village – back when communal capitalism meant communal. So, I’ve always been an independent (no real boss), entrepreneurial, passion-over-profit freelancer.

Running a natural food business in those days was a recipe for long hours and low income. Four kids, house building projects, a part-time gardening business, the music-writing life, plus TV and radio bits that sent me out 300 nights one year (my record!), you can see why for three decades I never considered volunteering.

After retiring from Victoria’s daily paper, my wife asked if I’d write four columns per year for the Community Association of Oak Bay’s insert in the Oak Bay News. How hard could that be? At one point, I was writing four columns per week for the Times Colonist.

The Community Association board wanted me to come to a meeting and talk about the proposed column. After hearing my ideas, they asked me to join the board. One meeting/month… how hard could that be?

Once on the board, I volunteered to co-chair a First Nations art project, a pole Songhees artist Butch Dick designed and his son, Clarence, carved. The pole stands in front of the 2014-built, $55-million Oak Bay Secondary School. After an extensive search for the right 20-foot red cedar log and a carving shed, Clarence Dick began work on Sno’uyutth, the name Butch and Clarence gave the pole.

Sno’uyutth means spreading good energy in the Songhees’ Lekwungen language, and it has inspired the last few years of my life. I started making regular visits to the Songhees Wellness Centre, the Songhees reserve lands and Clarence’s carving tent. I’d lived in Victoria for almost 50 years and never knew anything about the Songhees or nearby Esquimalt Nations, except my youngest son’s Bella Bella-born best man.

I wasn’t alone in my ignorance. When Clarence came before Oak Bay Council when we were just getting started with the project, he was one of the first Indigenous neighbours to speak in Council in 150 years. Our community learned a lot during the pole project, and Oak Bay Council now has regular meetings with our local First Nations leaders.

To launch the $100,000 project, I started using my old music scene contacts to promote benefit concerts at The Oaks Restaurant and Tea Room. Ditza and Nick still give me Saturday nights at their bistro to raise funds for my various causes.

During the pole project, the Community Association organized Dutch auctions during the events, and we raised thousands of dollars. We had Blues Night, Country Music Night, Jazz Night, Rock Night and one spectacular First Nations Night with drummers, singers, poets and academics. More importantly than the money raised, the Sno’uyutth energy raised our community’s consciousness.

In a year, the Community Association raised almost $100,000, and a huge crowd of Indigenous people and Oak Bay neighbours turned out for the pole raising ceremony in November 2015. With the excess funds from the project, the Community Association launched the Sno’uyutth Legacy Scholarship for Indigenous graduates of Oak Bay High for post-secondary education.

My pal, jazz great Joe Coughlin put together an all-star, 18-piece jazz band to celebrate Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday at Dave Dunnet Community Theatre, the new 420-seat venue at Oak Bay High where Joe can drive his wheelchair from the parking lot directly onstage, and all the bathrooms and theatre space is accessible to folks in wheelchairs. Joe sang Frank’s famous songs, and we raised enough money to launch the Sno’uyutth Legacy Scholarship and send our first student to Vancouver Island University.

Joe and I followed-up with his Salute to the Saloon Singers concert, and we now have three students in university with Sno’uyutth Legacy Scholarships.

One of the lessons I learned during the pole project was that it took almost two centuries of racism to create the problems facing today’s Indigenous survivors and their families. The damage done by the Indian Act and residential schools is multi-generational and will take a long time and much more than words of apology to solve. It will take educated Indigenous leaders to lead Canada to a solution. Sno’uyutth Legacy Scholarship will help.

Recently, I launched a memorial scholarship at the University of Victoria for music students in the jazz department in memory of Eric LeBlanc, a friend and 33-year-on-air host at CFUV, UVic’s radio station. Eric produced one of the world’s greatest blues radio shows, and I’ve organized a series of Blues for Eric benefit concerts at The Oaks starring Bill Johnson, David Harris, David Essig, Carol Sokoloff, Deb Rhymer and Children of Celebrities, a band that would have challenged anyone’s definition of the blues, but sold out The Oaks for a night of genre-busting musical fun that Eric would have loved.

My goal is to raise $25,000 to establish the scholarship so it can continue as an annual award in Eric’s memory.

I never thought I’d spend the last years of my life fundraising and volunteering for community projects. I’ve worked harder than I ever worked during my professional life, and been repaid with great, new friendships and deep love for my community. I’d highly recommend volunteering as a post-career gift to your community and to your own life. Sno’uyutth!

For more information or to contribute to the scholarship, visit https://www.oakbayrotaryfoundation.org/page/sno%E2%80%99uyutth-legacy-scholarship

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