TRIVIA TEAM
“Sharing a Brain” was named the team winner of the annual trivia contest hosted this month by the Friends of the Coquitlam Public Library Society. The competition was emceed by Mayor Richard Stewart at the Poirier branch.
A dozen Tri-City children will be able to play a season of sport this year thanks to a $3,000 donation from Coquitlam Centre. The mall handed over the proceeds from its Christmas gingerbread houses to KidSport Tri-Cities.
FIREFIGHTER $
The Port Moody Firefighters Charitable Society offered $1,000 last month to the Volunteer Cancer Drivers’ Society — “a remarkable donation considering they have only 44 members,” said spokesperson George Garrett (right), who is pictured with Steve O’Brien, Ryan Peters, driver Larry Coleman, firefighters’ president Rob Shoucai and Capt. Rod deBoer.
SHE’S A CHAMP
A War Amps video featuring Port Coquitlam “champ” Julianna Russo (right) has captured a gold award at the 2016-’17 International Mercury Awards in New York. The public service announcement shows the 18-year-old woman, who was born a right-arm amputee, using an artificial arm that gives her flexibility and balance as she dances. To watch Russo’s video, visit the War Amps of Canada channel on YouTube.com.
ALEXA WINNERS
Four Coquitlam Mounties clinched awards from Alexa’s Team for keeping impaired drivers off the road. Constables Robert Sierakowski, Gurucharan Tiwana (a two-time winner), Reuben Lamb and David Bigcharles each removed at least a dozen drivers who were drunk or on drugs, over the past year. The recognitions are handed out by the team that was created when four-year-old Alexa Renée Middelaer was hit and killed by an impaired driver in 2008. Bigcharles achieved the Alexa’s Team designation while working as a general duty patrol officer. “When I was younger, my cousin was killed in an impaired driving collision. It doesn’t matter who you are. I want to reach you and I want to help you.”
CADET PRIDE
Three teens from 201 Grilse Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps carried the Canadian flag onto the ice at the Port Coquitlam recreation complex last month for the start of the AAA Hockey Provincial Championships. The flag party — led by Cadet Chief Petty Officer Duncan Osborne — unfurled the maple leaf with CPO Alex Wang and Leading Seaman Jae Heon Kim. CPO Osborne, who is the most senior cadet in the corps and is responsible for training flag drill, said in a press release: “I feel such pride in my cadet corps, in my country and in my abilities. It is a huge moment out there in front of the public as I call commands.” The corps meets every Wednesday in Port Moody.
HELPING PATIENTS
The world’s smallest heart-lung machine is now in use at Royal Columbian Hospital, which serves the Tri-Cities. Thanks to donations from Jeannette and Stan Hrescak and CARDIOHELP, the hospital foundation has purchased two portable CARDIOHELP machines for the Extracorporeal Life Support (ECLS) team, the only mobile retrieval team of its kind in B.C. “This system is almost half the weight of our previous equipment,” said RCH’s chief of perfusion Robert Leslie, in a news release. “Because it’s lightweight, compact and sturdy, this heart and lung machine will make it even safer and quicker for our ECLS team to deploy and transport patients back to Royal Columbian by ground or air.” The gear provides the patient with enough oxygen and allows time to recover in cases where cardiac or pulmonary failure might be reversible.
TB VETS
A $25,000 cheque from the TB Vets Charitable Foundation to Royal Columbian, which serves the Tri-Cities, will allow the hospital to buy a ventilator. It’s the second similar system paid by the TB Vets in the last two years.
REPAIR HELP
Maura Fitzpatrick of Coquitlam’s Children of the Street Society thanked Coquitlam Canadian Tire owner Paul Droulis (left) and Frank Abdelsayed of the store’s auto department for maintaining the charity’s two vehicles for free. In exchange, the society has affixed the company’s logo on its vehicles, which are used to transport facilitators to the society’s prevention workshops.
HOSPICE CASH
Port Coquitlam’s Legion gave $1,000 to the Crossroads Hospice Society, which has its hospice in Port Moody. The donation brings the branch’s total for the charity to more than $30,000 since 2002.
SWEET!
Last week’s opening of Daniel Le Chocolat Belge in Port Coquitlam — owned by Judy and Ken Waters and Korina Houghton — drew MP Ron McKinnon, MLA Mike Farnworth and Mayor Greg Moore.
BUILDERS
The list of finalists up for an Ovation Award by the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association (GVHBA) includes two Coquitlam builders. The prizes, which will be handed out at an awards gala on April 29, include the Jedan Brothers Contracting (for Capacious, Prodigious and Oasis) and Troico Homes Solutions (for Retro Teals, Inlet Oasis and Book Matched and Bold) on the shortlist.
AT THE HELM
Port Moody’s Lynn Harrison is the new president of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of BC. The small business owner was named to the one-year position last month at the CHBA BC’s annual general meeting. “I’m honoured to be the president of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of British Columbia,” Harrison said in a news release. “Our message is very clear: The residential construction industry is essential to British Columbia’s long-term economic strength and prosperity.”
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