She is organizing a pork-roast fundraiser at High Creek Farm in Walton to help raise funds for Salem Orphanage Home in Kisumu, Kenya. It’s an approach to fundraising that just seemed to fit best with the community.

Crystal Jedrzejewski with seven orphans at the Salem Orphanage in July 2010. Below, Jedrzejewski holding a young orphan named Moses.

“I looked around this area and was trying to think of what’s pretty popular this time of year,” she said, “I’ve been noticing a lot of pig roasts have been popping up and people like going to those, and I figured why not do it as a fundraiser?”

Jedrzejewski first visited Salem Orphanage Home in May 2008, and she fell in love with the country and its people.

“Ever since I was little, I always had a huge pull in my heart to go to Africa. So then I researched a bunch of the different countries, and my criteria were that it was safe, and that I would lend a helping hand to the majority of the people that really needed it.”

Jedrzejewski chose Kenya because of the enormous number of children there orphaned by AIDS. The Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that there are between 1.6 million and 1.9 million people in Kenya living with the disease, and that there are anywhere between 1.1 million and 1.3 million orphaned children in Kenya because of AIDS.

“Then I fell in love with it,” she said of what happened next.

Salem Orphanage Home provides 65 children with a safe place for them to call home: three meals a day, health care, clean water, clothes, education and, perhaps most importantly, a family.

The orphanage started back in 1992 when Phoebe and John Onyango, born and raised into the poverty of Kenya, decided they needed to help their community with healthcare, education, and other basic needs – needs that Jedrzejewski said the Kenyan government is unable – or unwilling – to provide.

“Their government is still deemed corrupt,” she explained. “When you look at Canada, the government is able to provide different social service jobs like health care (and) education, …whereas the government in Kenya isn’t able to provide that for the people.”

The billions of dollars donated by countries such as Canada don’t always reach those who need it the most, so to ensure as much as her fundraising as possible goes to the orphanage, Jedrzejewski has enlisted some help here in Canada – the Rotary Club of St. Catharines.

“They issue tax receipts, mentor me, and they also send the money over for me because if I was just going to send it, then I would spend half the money trying to send it there, and I want to get all of it over there.”
She is also in constant contact with the directors of the orphanage so she knows how the money is being spent.

Jedrzejewski wants to raise about $6,000 for Salem Orphanage Home, and hopes to get about 250 to come out for the fundraiser.

The fundraiser starts at 5:30 on Sept. 4 at High Creek Farms, 43065 Canada Company Road in Walton.
Jedrzejewski will also be selling traditional Kenyan necklaces and scarves, and there will be a silent auction as well. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. The price includes your meal, entertainment, and a bus from Listowel which is sponsored by S & K Transportation Inc. Tickets can be purchased at Keil & Dadsons Insurance, or at Zehrs in Listowel.

Earlier this summer, the township identified more than 100 cases where homeowners had taken over use of abutting township property. In about 20 instances, that involved erecting structures such as fences, sheds and gazebos. Other violations included expansion of gardens and walkways.

Meeting Tuesday night, councillors approved a policy that outlines cases where the township might enter into an encroachment agreement rather than forcing the property owner to move off of the public land.

That includes structures in place before 1986, the time of the township’s first comprehensive zoning bylaw review; structures built at a time when a survey was not available; and structures that do not negatively affect the use of township property.

The document was drafted in response to council’s request bylaw enforcement staff move quickly to deal with outstanding encroachments, said clerk Christine Broughton.

In discussing the new policy, councillors were immediately asked to make exceptions, as two delegations appeared before them.

The first involves a shed on a property at 8 Victoria Glen in Elmira, where the structure occupies township land.

“We bought a house with a shed, and now it turns out the shed is mostly not on our property. We didn’t build the shed. It’s not a shed we can pick up and move; if we could, we would have done that,” explained homeowner Bert Menkveld. “We would just like to be permitted to leave that shed until it’s not serviceable. We understand it’s not our property.”

Though no decision was made, councillors appeared sympathetic to the request given the pre-existing status of the structure.

The second request is likely to prove more difficult, especially as others are expected to follow.
In this case, Karen Koebel-Mendlicott of 312 Townsend Dr. in Breslau asked that the township sell to her and a neighbour a large parcel of land at the rear of their yards.

The township land represents about a third of the property she maintains, and about half of that cared for by the neighbour.

Told that much of the yard was not in fact theirs, the neighbours had a survey done.

“When we saw the amount of land that wasn’t ours, it was appalling,” she said, explaining that she fears the land will become unkempt unless sold to the adjacent homeowners.

“Purchasing it would … give us a sense of control.”

Coun. Ruby Weber called for a report on the request, including the purpose of so much land uphill from the nearby trail, but was not particularly open to the idea.

“I’m not inclined to sell off any of our parkland property to anyone,” she said.

While encroaching structures are the most problematic, so-called soft encroachment – cases where people maintain township property as if it were their own land, often planting gardens or flowers – are also covered in the policy.

Broughton recommended existing instances be grandfathered, but that no new encroachments be allowed.

This drew criticism from Coun. Sandy Shantz, who said the practice typically benefits the township. Residents are already expected to tend to municipal property such as boulevards and rights-of-way, so there should be some leeway in letting them beautify the area.

But Coun. Murray Martin pointed out the potential for problems with maintenance, especially where plantings abut roadways or service corridors. If the landscaped areas are damaged by snowploughs or by maintenance vehicles, people seem to feel it’s up to the municipality to restore the area to how it was. That doesn’t fly, he said, because the land belongs to the municipality.

“The public should understand that they don’t any longer own the plants they put on our property,” added Weber.

A report on the two requests and similar ones that have also been received is expected back at a later date.

A avid follower of political issues, she said it was time to “throw her hat in the ring” rather than just talking about the issues. Recent debates over gravel pits and grievances in Breslau, including water issues, prompted her to take action.

A resident of Maryhill for the past eight years, Bryant, 55, came to the area from Mono Township, where all the gravel pit activity around Caledon left her more than passingly familiar with the aggregate debate.

“The last thing you want in a quiet rural community is a lot of trucks and a lot of excess traffic that wasn’t there before. That’s what you can expect. I know – I don’t think we had a car that didn’t get a crack in the windshield from all the flying rocks.”

As both her grown children live in Breslau, she’s familiar with the problems there, she added, noting some of the communities removed from Elmira sometimes feel alienated from township affairs.

“People need to be included. They need to know they have representation and responsible government.”
This will be the first run at public office for Bryant, a longtime volunteer with the Ontario SPCA who served for three years on the organization’s board of directors. A Brampton native, she said she’s familiar with what happens with unfettered growth – the place is unrecognizable from her childhood.

Having lived in Cambridge for a period after she and her husband David were married, both of them were eager to return to the region.

In noting little activity in the township during the last two municipal elections, she said it’s time for a change, a sentiment she’s heard from others – “we need people to get involved.”

After being acclaimed in the last two elections, Mayor Bill Strauss is facing a challenge from former councillor Pat McLean and Elmira businessman Todd Cowan. In Ward 1, incumbent Ruby Weber is seeking reelection, joined by newcomer Jim David. The other incumbent, Sandy Shantz, has yet to declare her intentions. In Ward 2, Mark Bauman is the sole candidate. He was acclaimed in 2006.

The nomination process is open until Sept. 10. Voters go to the polls in province-wide municipal elections Oct. 25.

The road needs study calls for a big increase in preventative maintenance, arguing every dollar spent today saves four or five dollars years down the road. To follow the prescribed course, however, the township would have to commit multiples of what it now spends each year on roadwork.

Where it currently spends $600,000 a year on asphalt resurfacing, for instance, the report by AECOM Canada Ltd. recommends ramping that up to $3 million annually by 2020. For gravel roads, that number would jump to $230,000 a year from $90,000. That’s in addition to $2.9 million a year in reconstruction projects.

In tabling the report at Tuesday night’s council meeting, director of engineering and planning Dan Kennaley acknowledged the goals are daunting, especially balanced against other infrastructure demands such as maintaining and upgrading bridges and water services.

“The road needs study poses some major challenges for the township. However, it’s important to keep in mind that whatever council decides to spend on road infrastructure in the future, this report will help ensure that money gets spent in as cost-effective a manner as possible,” he said.

AECOM’s Dave Anderson told councillors the top priority should be maintaining roads, doing routine work to keep them from deteriorating and requiring much more expensive reconstruction work.

Where roads are still in good repair, but on the cusp, resurfacing them within a year or two could mean getting another 15 or 20 years of service out of them, he said.

“The objective is to keep the good roads good.”

But Kennaley noted the township has some catching up to do on many fronts. For example, the report recommends gravel roads have new aggregate applied every three years. But the township is working on a 10-year cycle that it is trying to get down to seven.

“The road needs study does answer the question that council periodically asks me, and that is ‘Are we keeping up?’ The answer, unfortunately, it would appear to be ‘no, we’re not keeping up.’”

Having completed an inventory and assessment of Woolwich’s 351-kilometre road network, the study provides a map to better-maintained roadways, but at a cost. By putting a priority on maintaining good roads, however, some of those in needs of reconstruction will get deferred even longer.

That will be a tough policy to accept in some neighbourhoods, suggested Coun. Ruby Weber.

“It’s pretty hard to sell to somebody who lives on a street that’s full of potholes and they constantly see us resurfacing roads that seem to be in fairly good condition,” she said.

That will be especially true in the smaller settlements, added Coun. Murray Martin. Because of lower traffic volumes, they already receive fewer upgrades to roads, some of which are in very poor condition.

“In our smaller communities, we have a lot of roads that are shot,” he said. “All the people that live there, they say ‘we pay our taxes like everyone else,’ and they believe they deserve to have good roads, with decent drainage, to drive on.”

The balancing act will be part of the 2011 budget deliberations as the township looks at long-range capital spending, including which projects to undertake next year.

In coalition with the Canadian Food Grains Bank, the Christian Reform World Relief Committee, and the Presbyterian World Service and Development, the MCC is sending tens of thousands of dollars in relief to the devastated country.

“Currently we do not have any program or staff in Pakistan,” said Dan Driedger, resource development director with MCC Ontario, “but we are responding with some money for food; we’re sending relief kits over as well.”

The MCC, an international aid and relief agency whose Ontario office is located in Kitchener, has already dedicated about $20,000 in aid to Pakistan, as well as 2,000 relief kits that contain basic necessities such as soap, toothbrushes, bandages, and other items.

And those numbers are expected to rise.

“Our experience in the past is that once you get in and do a really good analysis of what the needs are, that tends to go up,” he said.

The relief kits are already on their way to Pakistan thanks to the MCC always maintaining an inventory ready to send out quickly, because, “when a disaster strikes, you can’t wait to ramp that up and put out an appeal [for supplies].”

The Canadian government recently announced it would match dollar-for-dollar all private donations made to registered Canadian charities from Aug. 2 to Sept. 12, in addition to the $33-million already committed for flood relief. That includes any donations to the MCC.

According to official sources in Pakistan, the flood, which began in late July after heavy monsoon rains caused the Indus River to overflow its banks, has destroyed approximately 900,000 homes and wreaked havoc on the transportation and communication systems, making it difficult for international aid to reach the people that have been hardest hit.

“It’s one thing to get [aid] into a good port or airport in Pakistan, but then actually trying to get out to those more remote areas, sometimes that takes a number of weeks to do,” Driedger explained.

The disaster will not end when the flood waters eventually recede: it will probably take years for the country to recover, he added.

“They’ve had their livelihoods – factories, their farms, their homes – all destroyed as well. So the rebuilding of that isn’t something that takes just a couple of months to do. That’ll be years in the rebuilding effort.”

For anyone interested in donating to MCC, Driedger said the best form of aid is a financial one. Cheques should be designated “Pakistan Flood Relief” and can be mailed to the MCC office at 50 Kent Ave. Kitchener, ON N2G 3R1 or dropped off at your nearest MCC Thrift Shop or Mennonite Savings and Credit Union branch.

Woolwich Minor Ringette requires some additional ice time at the Woolwich Memorial Centre, but the slots available – Saturday evening and early Sunday morning – don’t fit the organization’s schedule. Recreation staff is now asking other users to think about trading time slots to accommodate the young girls who want to play ringette.

Discussing the issue Tuesday night, councillors decided on the cooperative approach. While guidelines favour youth groups when assigning ice times, the township would rather not get heavy-handed about the time slots.

It’s a matter of balancing new requests with the needs of those who’ve already booked time, facilities manager Brian Detzler told councillors.

“We have to figure how to accommodate new requests. And how do we continue to recognize existing customers?”

Given that that there are still prime time hours available, the township should be able to act as mediator in working something out, said Coun. Sandy Shantz.

Fellow Ward 1 councillor Ruby Weber agreed, but noted the township should be favouring youth groups over, say, adult pickup hockey.

“We built these arenas for the kids,” she said, arguing the township shouldn’t be afraid to lose some adult bookings.

Mike Hicknell addressess an audience of 70 at the Woolwich Memorial Centre Wednesday night during a meeting organized by the Elmira Bio Fuel Citizen’s Committee.

The public meeting organized by the Elmira Bio Fuel Citizen’s Committee (BFCC) was much livelier than the council meeting Hicknell addressed Aug. 10. It was the second consecutive Wednesday the group, which opposes the proposed biogas plant, has held a meeting to drum up support and to pass out lawn signs, more visible in town in the last week.

As he did in council chambers, Hicknell predicted the extra trucks rolling through Elmira’s core would pose a safety hazard to the community. He estimated 90 per cent of the trucks travelling to and from the Martin’s Lane site would pass through the main intersection at Arthur and Church streets.

The company behind the plan to generate electricity using organic waste, Bio-En Power Inc., says the operation would see seven to 15 trucks daily, though opponents have been citing 80 trucks, the top-end limit listed in the application process. Hicknell, for instance, used a figure of up to 160 truck trips in his presentation, saying it was unclear if the 80 trucks were only counted as one way in or out.

In an interview, however, Bio-En president Chuck Martin disputed the traffic claims.

“As far as the traffic is concerned, I don’t buy the argument. There will be significantly less traffic than when that site had the feed mill, the pet food plant, the truck service and a fuel depot,” said Martin. “The truck numbers are nothing like what they used to be.”

Moreover, land is zoned industrial – any industrial use is likely to bring truck traffic, perhaps far more than the proposed biogas plant, he added.

But traffic is not the only concern voiced by the residents’ group, which is also worried about odour and noise issues. Still in the early stages of organizing, opponents want to bring more pressure to bear on municipal politicians. Although the province has taken the matter out of local hands – under the Green Energy Act, decisions about these kind of alternative energy projects are made by the provincial government – Woolwich council could do more to lobby on residents’ behalf, they say.

From Hicknell’s perspective, councillors should be vocal in opposition of the plant, contacting the government and the premier’s office directly rather than just making technical recommendations about the project.

Added Ed Speers, one of the BFCC organizers, “there is a role for them as councillors in addressing Queen’s Park, the government and Mr. McGuinty.”

The group will be holding another meeting Aug. 25, starting at 6:30 p.m. at the WMC, to plan its next steps in the battle.

Musician Al Heiser of Listowel joined the band at the Gore Park bandshell Aug. 15 as part of Lynn Russwurm’s anniversary jam, one of many Sunday night shows that have been part of the summer showcase concert series.

“I couldn’t believe how many people came out that night,” he said of the show which featured emcee and musician Larry Mercey, Ron Toulthard on the steel guitar, Bob Trembley on the dobro, Russwurm on the bass and guest musician Al Heiser.

The series has showcased many local musicians. Russwurm estimates that some 200 people attend each week. Often drawing an older crowd, the concerts provide the kind of music they can sing along with, and a number of familiar tunes, along with originals echoed from the gazebo this week.

“This Sunday was our best so far though. I was celebrating my wife and my 25th wedding anniversary and it will be my 80th birthday in September so we had twice as many reasons to be celebrating.”

Many of the artists have requested to be involved in the event again, and Russwurm is already looking forward to next year.

“All of us are really happy with how the season has been going. The music has been good and it is just a good time for people to get together.”

The annual festival is Koinonia’s gift back to the community, said event coordinator Crystal Kuepfer. It features free food, live music and dance from their in-house musicians, and lots of activities for kids and adults alike.

“We really do value family and our community – we just want to really offer something to them as a way of giving back,” she said. “To host a family event that the whole family can come to and enjoy together is something we love to do.”

There will be a carousel, a bouncy castle, face-painting, and a giant inflatable slide that Keupfer points out as one of the favourite attractions each year. There will also be a play area for pre-schoolers. For the brave, there is going to be a rock-climbing wall and a bucking bull.

This is the tenth year for family fest, and Koinonia expects about 2,000 people to attend. The whole day really rests on the shoulders of about 300 volunteers – “(we) definitely could not do it without them,” she said.

Family Fest runs from 3 to 6 p.m. Sunday; admission is free, and ride tickets cost $1 to $2. Koinonia Christian Fellowship is located at 850 Sawmill Road.

Mike Hicknell told township officials they aren’t putting enough pressure on the province to prevent the project from going ahead in Elmira’s north end.

Derek Potma holds a sign protesting the biogas facility proposed for Elmira during a public meeting held on Wednesday night in the community centre room of the Woolwich Memorial Centre, attended by about 30 people. Opponents have been looking to spread the lawn signs around town.

Bio-En Power Inc. plans to create electricity by converting organic waste into methane to power a generator. Materials such as livestock manure, food waste, used cooking oils and other fats will be fed into anaerobic digester, creating the fuel for the process. The $12-million facility would generate 2.8 megawatts of renewable electricity – enough to power 2,200 homes – and 3.4 mW of heat.

Under the province’s new Green Energy Act, municipalities are no longer involved in the approval process for alternative energy projects. Rather, the decision will be made by the Ministry of the Environment.

Acknowledging that reality, Hicknell said there’s nothing stopping the township from taking a strong stand in talks with the province. In addressing council this week, he expressed particular concern about the number of extra trucks travelling to and from the proposed site on Martin’s Lane, adjacent to the pet food mill.

Bio-En predicts the operation will see seven to 15 trucks daily, though opponents have been citing 80 trucks, the top-end limit listed in the application process.

Most of the trucks bringing in food waste will be coming from the south, east and west, Hicknell argued, meaning they’ll pass through the intersection of Arthur and Church streets. Given all the other streets and driveways that intersect those two main roads, the impact on local traffic would be significant.

“I hope you do something about it, otherwise we’re going to have a plant in the north end of Elmira that people are going to die because of,” he said, predicting more collisions.

“Does council intend to do anything about reducing truck traffic in our downtown?” he asked, adding the area is home to many older residents. “Can trucks and senior citizens coexist in downtown Elmira?”

Dan Kennaley, the township’s director of engineering and planning, said traffic flows are important to the township. In its recommendations to the MOE, Woolwich requested a traffic study prior to any decision on the project.

While councillors did not respond directly to those questions, Coun. Sandy Shantz recommended public comments such as Hicknell’s be sent to the MOE as it considers the Bio-En application.