Fort St John and Area Better At Home

ALL the lovely cards and gift cards have been delivered. Thank you to Peace Seniors Connect and Care Society for collecting the generous donations of gift cards and personalized holiday cards that we were then able to deliver this past week to brighten up the lives of so many older adults in FSJ and Taylor. Thank you to our awesome community! Your beautiful cards and heartfelt donations put smiles on everyone’s faces this week. Merry Christmas! Vanessa Siemens-Ford Rita Schonewille

Today was amazing. We delivered Salvation Army hampers to some of our clients that were unable to get out to grab their own. Then, courtesy of The Employees of BC Hydro, we delivered meals and homemade cookies to all the tenants in North Peace Seniors Housing Apartment Buildings #1 and #2 and Heritage #3. Thank you to Aniela's Kitchen Kitchen for preparing turkey dinner for over 100 happy folks. Thank you to Baked for the delicious buns. BC Hydro employees organized and funded the whole event. Michelle Ruttan McArthur is an amazing volunteer who helps us out weekly and her sons Tyler and Jesse made delivering so much fun. Jesse aka Santa made a real difference tonight and brought a smile to so many faces. I cannot say thank you enough!

Oh my goodness! Thank you to Kerri Ruttan Laurin for the 50 tins of beautiful baking we delivered to some very lucky folks today!

Thank you to Tourmaline! This generous donation will be used to assist low income older adults across our community with necessities such as food, incontinence products and foot care.

Forwarding for a friend in Fort St. John Hi there, I am looking for a hospital style bed for a family member who will be receiving palliative care at home. Any ...help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you, Maegan Sewell Fort St. John 403-463-3043 [email protected] See more

Huge shoutout to Lex and the PCR crew Peace Country Rentals They were a key sponsor of Better at Home’s lawn care program. Because of their generous donation of a trailer to transport lawn mowing equipment for 4 months, many seniors in and around the community were able to have their lawns taken care of. PCR are great partners in our effort to keep older adults in their own homes for as long as they are safely able.

Written by Rhonda Eckel As I was volunteering today at the women's resource Centre , I noticed we are getting low on staples laundry soap fabric softener , toil...et paper paper towel Kleenex , baby wipes diapers groceries cereals soups . lady's and men's bathroom products just to name a few . . As well linen SETS , bath towels comforters blankets etc . . Winter coats are in desperate need . As is winter clothing . If anyone can help out I'd be willing to come and pick up . Just private message me . See more

Thank you Aniela's Kitchen and Lux Apparel for your kindness

Made With Love Meals For the last 15 weeks, Aniela's Kitchen has been preparing 35 -40 meals a week for local, no-income seniors in our community, for clients... with Better At Home, as well as a handful of other local seniors too. We’re looking for ongoing donations, on a weekly basis from you or the businesses you work for, so we can continue to make this an ongoing community event, to help those seniors who need it most. Each meal is just $10, so it’s an affordable sponsorship amount for you to help out our low income, local seniors. Sponsorship Examples: $10-Single Meal Sponsorship $40-1 Month Sponsorship for 1 Senior $100- 10 Single Meals Sponsored $200-1 Month Sponsorship for 5 Seniors $400- 1 Week Sponsorship of ALL Meals $1600- 1 Month Sponsorship for ALL Meals How can you go about sponsoring a senior? Etransfer your donation to: [email protected] Please message us with either you cell number or email address so we can send you a receipt. Stop by our store and make you sponsorship directly. We accept cash, debit or credit card payments. Call us to make a credit card payment. The next time you’re in our store, buying something yummy, ask us to add a senior meal onto your purchase. We’re located on the dump road. 9867 269 Rd. Look for our barrel We’re open Monday 8 am to 5 pm Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 7 pm They say that it takes a village, well Im very proud to be a part of this incredible one Thank you so much to each of you for making this program so successful for our local, low income seniors Jeanette 250-261-2643

Thank you Lux Apparel for supporting Made with Love meals for seniors as well as the SPCA. Wishing Trigger a speedy recovery and a long life.

So hey guys!! You know how we do our weekly Made With Love Meals, well, we’d really like to include a yummy dessert for the seniors each week. But truth be tol...d, I have zero extra time to bake something scrumptious, cuz my ovens are typically being used for other menu items. This past Wednesday the seniors were treated to a delicious vanilla cake topped with whipped cream and fresh berries, shared by our friend, Lorna Braun (We heard back from the staff at Better At Home, yesterday that they LOVED IT!!) We’re looking for a donation of roughly 40 baked desserts of your choice, each week. They would need to be individually packaged and brought to our kitchen by noon each Wednesday. If this is something you’d enjoy doing and would like to share with the seniors, please let me know. I’ll create a rotation list so everyone wanting to help with this, has a chance to share Thanks everyone Jeanette

We are looking for donations of the following for a client moving into her own apartment: Sofa or love seat in good condition Small kitchen table Microwave Coffee maker ... Kettle Can be dropped off or picked up tomorrow or Thursday. Pm or text 250-793-7046 if you are able to help out. See more

Looking for a yard work contractor for 2-3 days of work per week. Must have drivers license and be able to tow a small trailer or fit equipment in box of truck. Everything is provided and pay is decent. Also have an assistant willing to work alongside. Schedule is very flexible. Contractor needs to be dependable and pay attention to detail. Training can be provided. Please text 250-793-7046 or email [email protected] if interested. Criminal record check will be required. Perfect job for someone who wants some extra cash.

It is always a pleasure to watch the FSJ Community Awards and this year was especially meaningful as many of the nominees and recipients are affiliated with Fort St John and Area Better at Home. Congratulations to Jeanette Johnston who is Humanitarian of the year. She contributes all across the community with Phoenix Volunteer Club and most recently established the Made with Love Meal Program which directly benefits seniors by allowing community members the opportunity to spo...nsor fresh meals from Aniela's Kitchen. Runner up in this category was Vanessa Siemens-Ford who is the founder of Peace Seniors Connect and Care. What began as a Christmas Hamper campaign out of her living room has evolved into a year-round bounty of services and goods organized and gathered by Vanessa while she runs a busy household, a daycare and a home-based business. Vanessa’s kind heart and generosity has benefited seniors across the community and her willingness to provide a home base for others to donate their time, money, food and gifts is valued by all. The Lifetime Achievement Award was won by Roxanne Chmelyk who is president of the Senior Care Foundation. Roxanne is a fixture in all the seniors facilities in town, organizing dances, music events and fundraisers all of which benefit the elders of our community. The foundation pays for a portion of housekeeping services for lower income seniors that Better at Home provides. Runners up were Bob Trobak who was on the NPSHS board when the decision was made to bring BAH into Fort St John and he has been active on behalf of seniors for many years. Mrs Mary Campbell was the other runner-up and is a beloved client, musical presence and valuable member of our community, leading a life of independence at an age well into her 90’s. We are both lucky and proud to work with these good people and we congratulate them all. See more

Better at Home has been in FSJ for 6 years and since we began, Tim Hortons’ Ron and Julia Bowie have been key supporters of our program. Every Christmas they help sponsor our Christmas Light Tour by providing refreshments, gift cards and this year, mugs for each of the participants. At the beginning of COVID-19, Tim Hortons donated loads of coffee that we have been distributing to seniors in NPSHS throughout the duration. ... As soon as Aniela's Kitchen began their Made with Love initiative, Julia reached out and when we bring our seniors their weekly meal, they get a package of coffee courtesy of our local Tim Hortons. This gesture is appreciated more than we can express! Thank you Tim Hortons for being such great community supporters!

Sometimes collaboration is the answer! These survival kits were made possible by a fantastic donation of hand sanitizer, gloves and paper towel by Watts Projects, household cleaners and toilet paper by Home Hardware Fort St John, donated masks made by Peace Mask Collective and water from Watson Engelbert Red-L Distributors Ltd. These were put together with help from Zander Brook Goulet. These are being distributed to seniors in and around the community.

Our hearts are full The needs of our seniors have always been a consideration of PETRONAS They created and delivered beautiful hampers this year and now they have made a very generous donation that will pay for healthy fresh meals for many of our low income seniors. We are so grateful! Thank you Petronas and Aniela's Kitchen for making this happen

Community support . I cannot stress enough how much these meals mean to all of the recipients

Thank you Petro-Canada.

This Wednesday Come out and support the seniors of FSJ

We are still accepting weekly contributions to help us with our Made with Love Meals that currently provides meals to 30 local seniors, that are clients with Be...tter At Home. SPONSOR A SENIOR If you can afford if, we’d love it if you would be able to sponsor one of the 30 seniors receiving weekly meals, for the month. Each meal is $10 each, so that would be just $40 for a month. If you’d like to sponsor a senior, please send payment to: [email protected] I will be happy to provide you with a receipt if you send me your cell number or email address. If you’d rather, please come by our store instead, we’re open from 11-7 Monday to Saturday. 9867 269 Rd. Look for our barrel Thank you so much for your consideration Jeanette

Such a generous community we live in

Made With Love Meals Aniela's Kitchen is preparing a minimum of 25 meals a week for local seniors in our community, for clients with Better At Home, as well a...s a few other local seniors too. We’re looking for donations on a weekly basis from you, so we can continue to make this an ongoing community event. I’d love to have each of you working with us in our kitchen, preparing these meals for the seniors, but right now we all know that can’t happen. How can you help? Etransfer your donation to: [email protected] Please message us with either you cell number or email address so we can send you a receipt. Stop by our store and make a donation. We accept cash, debit or credit card payments. We’re located on the dump road. 9867 269 Rd. Look for our barrel We’re open from 11am to 7 pm They say that it takes a village, well Im very proud to be a part of this one Thank you so much, Jeanette 250-261-2643

KJA Ventures donated a generous amount of flour, sugar, rice, bleach and a few other goodies that we have been divvying up to distribute to our people in the upcoming weeks. Thank you Kash!