MINDBLOWING
A team from Hillcrest middle school in Coquitlam is with seven other SD43 groups for the world finals of the Odyssey of the Mind contest this week. The teams earned a spot at the championships after winning the provincials.
LITTLE LIBRARY
Belcarra kids opened the village’s first free mini library last Friday, said Jol Drake. The handcrafted boxes, which Juve Naing built with children, are a common sight now in the Tri-Cities to encourage early literacy in open spaces.
WELCOME, EH!
Coquitlam-PoCo MP Ron McKinnon joined civic and religious leaders as well as Syrian refugees to launch a new Tri-Cities Friends of Refugees Task Group project: fixing up four homes for new Canadians.
ER MACHINE
Bill Dick and Lora Covinha (right) of Phoenix Truck & Crane gave $36,190 to the Eagle Ridge Hospital Foundation. The gift wraps up the foundation’s $90,940 goal for a new portable ultrasound machine.
LIONS SHARE
Dennis Baker, president of the Burnaby Lougheed Lions Club, this month handed over $1,000 to Maura Fitzpatrick, fundraising manager for the Coquitlam-based Children of the Street Society, for its anti-sexual exploitation workshops. To date, the group has presented $3,000 to the non-profit organization headed up by Diane Sowden, a Coquitlam school trustee.
RMC GRAD
Coquitlam’s Elizabeth Hyun Woo Han is now a graduate of the prestigious Royal Military College. Officer Cadet Han, who was one of 300 students graduating from the Kingston, Ont., institution and obtained a BA (Honours) in business administration, will make her career in Petawawa.
UKE DONATIONS
The Cutie Circle — a Coquitlam-based ukulele group — held a jamboree at Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Library on Tuesday to celebrate its recent donation. The musicians gave the Fraser Valley Regional Library, of which the Fox library is a member, 21 ukulele kits thanks to sponsors Kings Music and the city of New Westminster. Heather Scoular, director of FVRL’s customer experience, said in a news release its uke lending program “has seen an amazing customer uptake with the kits being borrowed over 1,760 times. The Circle’s donation of an additional 21 kits will allow even more of our customers to experience this wonderful little instrument.”
SCORE!
More than $33,000 was swung in this month at the fifth annual SD43/KidSport Charity Golf Classic at the Westwood Plateau Golf and Country Club in Coquitlam. The funds will help 90 kids in financial need register for a season of sports.
jcleugh@tricitynews.com
