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New West seniors celebrate a milestone

What's happening Around Town

Nine seniors celebrated a milestone with their friends at the Sapperton Pensioners Association.

Each year, the association holds an Over 90s lunch to celebrate seniors who are 90 or older. Joanna Zabinsky, Elsie Hyde, Thelma Olsen, Bill Ward, Beth Vernon, Ayl Vernon, Morgan McGrath, Emily Crawford and Sheila Northrup are all members of this year’s Over 90s group.

“We had three new ones that hit 90 this year,” said Vic Leach, a member of the association. “Elsie, Thelma and Beth all hit 90 this year.”

Two other Over 90s celebrants couldn’t attend the June 3 luncheon; Joe Fritz was visiting relatives in Calgary and Mabel Wike wasn’t feeling well.

Mayor Jonathan Cote and Coun. Bill Harper represented the city at the luncheon.

The association also presented Al Lambert with a gift in appreciation of his many years of service to the association. Lambert was at the helm of the event for many years.

The annual Over 90s luncheon is a team effort of the Sapperton Pensioners Association and its supporters. Judy Brennan and Louisa Lundy prepared the lunch, Freda Lambert made the corsages and flower centrepieces, Ann Smith arranged to get the flower donated by Save-On-Foods and Cal Donnelly MC’ed the event.

New West heritage presentation gets musical

The New Westminster Historical Society is singing a different tune for this month’s presentation.

The presentation that’s taking place on Wednesday, June 17 at 7:30 p.m. will focus on the songs of Mable Cave-Brown, who came to New Westminster in 1911.

“In her years here, she became active in the community as a prominent music teacher and performer. She was also a composer of music,” said a press release about the presentation. “This presentation will look at her compositions, her use of Canadian poetry, and the role of cultural societies, particularly in New Westminster. The presentation will include discussion and performance of some of the songs.”

The guest speaker will be Kevin Barrington-Foote, who taught music history and theory at Douglas College from 1974 to 2008. Harald and Sharon Krebs will perform. 

“This will be a wonderful opportunity to hear of this local, prominent, musically-involved individual, Mabel Cave-Brown-Cave, and to actually hear her music as presented by experts in musical history,” said the press release.

The New Westminster Historical Society’s presentation takes place in the auditorium of the New Westminster Public Library, 716 Sixth Ave. The program is free and everyone is welcome to attend.

London Drugs launches new recycling program

A new pilot program enables folks to recycle home-cleaning and air-freshening waste and keep them out of landfills.

TerraCycle has joined with London Drugs to provide drop-off boxes at select London Drugs stores. The collection box is located near the air fresheners at the New Westminster store in Westminster Centre.

“We have seen a number of great successes in our partnership with TerraCycle, and we are proud to be able to expand upon the types of items our customers can recycle,” Maury McCausland, retail operations sustainability specialist at London Drugs, said in a press release. “This program is a natural extension to our Bring Back the Pack and What’s the Green Deal? programs, so we expect to see great engagement from those who are dedicated to diverting waste from our landfills.”

Items now being collected at the local store include: plastic bottle caps or flip-top caps; cleaning wipes packaging; trigger heads; spray pumps; soap pumps; plastic air freshener packaging; used air freshener cartridges; and empty plug-in air fresheners.

According to a press release from TerraCycle, Febreze and London Drugs, these items are technically recyclable, but the high cost of separating missed plastics means the infrastructure to recycle them isn’t available across the country.

The Air and Home Care Brigade rewards collectors by donating two cents for each item of waste shipped to TerraCycle toward a charity, non-profit or school. With this program, the money is being donated to the Canadian Cancer Society.

College honours alumni

A woman who has been recognized as one of Canada’s top female entrepreneurs is getting a bit of recognition from her alma mater.

Douglas College is presenting its 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award to Karina Hayat, president and co-founder of Prizm Media, a healthcare marketing company based in Vancouver. Hayat ranked ninth on this year’s Profit and Chatelaine W100 list of Canada’s top female entrepreneurs.

“I’m absolutely humbled and honoured to receive this award,” she said in a press release. “I’m very grateful for my experience as a student at Douglas College. During that time, I learned to believe in myself and have confidence that I could achieve my goals.”

While studying biology and other subjects at Douglas College in the early 2000s, Hayat co-founded the business with Zeeshan Hayat, then her partner and now her husband. Their initial goal was to supplement their income, but the business soon became the focus of their careers.

According to Douglas College, Prizm Media has generated millions of leads for hundreds of clients, which include some of the fastest-growing mail order pharmacies and durable medical equipment providers in the U.S. The company’s revenue has also grown by over 1,200 per cent in recent years.

Douglas honours Oppal

Douglas College is awarding its highest distinction to former B.C. Attorney General and Judge Wally Oppal.

As part of the summer graduation ceremonies on June 3, Oppal visited Douglas College to receive the honorary fellow and to deliver a speech to graduating students from the faculty of humanities and social sciences.

Oppal’s career has included serving as a judge for the County Court of Vancouver, the Supreme Court of B.C. and then the B.C. Court of Appeal. He later served as an MLA (serving as attorney general and minister responsible for multiculturalism) and was then appointed as commissioner of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, which looked into the women reported missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“It is our great pleasure to recognize the Honourable Wally Oppal with the highest distinction Douglas College can bestow — Honorary Fellow,” Douglas College president Kathy Denton said in a press release. “Throughout his career, Mr. Oppal has dedicated himself to improving public safety and promoting justice, particularly for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. He is a tremendous example for our students, especially those studying criminology, legal studies, and other programs that consider social justice issues.”