By Pepper Parr
November 26, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON
It’s a community that just keeps on giving – a little like that Energizer bunny.
TD District VP Cosimo Mazzafero on the left approving a withdrawal from the bank for the Burlington Community Foundation Laura Pizzacalli is pleased as punch with the donation. Ron Foxcroft know what it took the reel this cheque in.
Yesterday it was the Toronto Dominion Bank that handed over their cheque for $20,000 – thank you very much said Ron Foxcroft as he added another notch to the fund raising goal for Flood Relief.
The Burlington Sports Alliance came through in a big $20,000 way for the flood victims. From the left Mary Nichol, John Tait, Collen Mulholland, Rick Dawson, Jean Longfield and Angelo Bentivegna
Next day it was the Sports Alliance that turned in its cheque for $20,000 as well. Not to take anything away from the bank – but for the Sports Alliance to bring in $20,000 is a major achievement.
The revised goal is now $1 million and with the donations in the wings and that last minute hustle Foxcroft has put on community organizations and major corporations the target is certainly achievable.
The Burlington Community Foundation is now winding down the hard push for funds – it is still important – but the task now is to begin putting together the files that have to be completed to put the money raised into the hands of the people who need it.
As the tremendous community effort works its way to the date – December 15th – on which funds begin to get distributed those who did the really hard day to day work to produce the results are beginning to think about the lessons that have been learned.
Tuesday morning Collen Mulholland who has been the driving force behind making this all come together, took part in a McMaster DeGroote School of Business event at the Ron Joyce Campus on the South Service Road where she talked about how communities are going to have to prepare for the “not if but when” extreme weather situations that most believe are the result of global warming.
Last weekend Buffalo got thumped with snow that was as high as seven feet in some areas; the next day the GTA had a wind storm that got as high as 100 kmh.
Help was needed from wherever it could be gotten in Buffalo when they got more than six feet of snow.
In Buffalo there were shovel brigades consisting of dozens of people pushing snow. Many of the people in Burlington who will benefit from the Flood Relief funds raised did not have insurance – they weren’t able to buy any. Others had severe caps put on the amount of insurance they could buy.
These were all responsible people – they just weren’t able to buy the protection they needed. We are going to see more of this type of weather related damage done to communities.
Mulholland talked about the difficulty in raising funds quickly. Burlington had people who were in very real dire straits – they had been wiped out through no fault of their own. Many were able to turn to family and savings – but this country is no longer known for its high savings rate. A lot of families carry quite a bit of debt.
Mulholland explained that there are hundreds of Foundations that have funds which they make available – but as Mulholland explained: “It takes a long time to actually get the funds”. There are all kinds of hoops that one has to go through. She suggested communities might want to begin looking for and creating new models to meet the needs of a community. The Burlington Community wasn’t created to do what it found itself doing.
It is difficult to financially support something you can’t see – when the waste bins were off the streets – the need wasn’t visible anymore – but the need is still there.
The Mayor made the call and the BCF took up the challenge. Mulholland wonders if there is an opportunity to create a structure that has a Community Foundation in every city, town and hamlet in the country with each creating an endowment and being set up and able to move funds from one community to another.
Canada has a fine tradition of communities helping communities. Burlington recently agreed to send a truck and a front end loader to Buffalo to help clear snow.
We seem though to be entering a different environment where events such as the 191 mm of rain that fell on relatively small parts of Burlington in four to five hours was something the bureaucrats said could not possibly prepared for. There are differing views on that but the point is well made – we have different weather these days and both people and property are going to be hurt.
Burlington appears to have decided to become proactive and serve as a leader in the thinking that has to be done to create the structures needed across the country to let people help people and prepare for the kind of significant environmental changes we are going to have to deal with.
