Once again it’s time to celebrate Canada Day, July 1st. Central Frontenac is pleased to sponsor activities and events held at the Oso Beach in Sharbot Lake.

Starting with a pancake breakfast from 7:00 am to 10:00am, at the Wagner Road Fire station. Sponsored by Central Frontenac Fire Department.

The annual Canada Day run is starting with registration at 9:30 offering a 2K and 5k runs. $10.00 per person or $20.00 per family.

The Lions Club will be marshalling the parade again this year. We would like to encourage organizations, businesses and individuals of all ages to come out and celebrate red and white on Canada Day. Starting at noon, enter a float, walk your dog, ride your bike, or even ride your horse but please join us in making the parade a great start to summer in Central Frontenac.

Opening ceremonies are at 1:00 pm with local dignitaries in attendance to join in singing O Canada.

Along with a lot of local musical talent at the band shell we have karaoke, open mic and a karate demonstration in the lineup. Rural Frontenac Community Services will be hosting kid’s games and crafts. Face painting will be back as well.

A vendor village will also be available as well as the Masons and Lions Club will have their canteen with extended hours until 8:00 pm. The 39ers will have the delicious strawberry social fundraiser in the canteen area as well.

Back this year by popular demand is the fun-filled duct boat races. Challenge your neighbour, the island next door or another group of rivals to see who is the best boat builder in town! Starting at 2:00pm with registration starting at 1:30 pm, all age groups are welcome and prizes will be awarded. Rules and requirements are available on our Facebook page, District #3 Rec Committee or at the Central Frontenac Township office.

The evening will end with the always spectacular fireworks held at dusk.

A tax receipt can be issued at the township office for anyone wishing to donate to help with the Canada Days expenses.

A complete listing for Canada Day activities in Sharbot Lake will be published in an upcoming paper.

Hoping that Mother Nature cooperates on July 1st and we can enjoy celebrating together once again the great country that we are so lucky to live in.

Matt Walker lives north of Madoc, but he works in Addington Highlands and in North and Central Frontenac. He runs the Compassionate Care Program, which deals with a broad range of needs for individuals who are faced with a “life limiting illness”, and for their families as well.

“The services we offer don’t begin at the very end of life, and they don’t end when a life ends either. People can live, and live well, with life limiting illnesses, and we offer support for them and their families every step of the way. And we offer grief counselling as well.”

One of the programs Compassionate Care is known for is volunteer visits. Part of Matt Walker’s job is to recruit and train volunteers, match them with patients, and provide support.

Compassionate Care is also available to provide free equipment loans, (hospital and lift beds, bed rails, wheelchairs, walkers and canes) etc. and to advocate for patients as they navigate the healthcare system.

“Anything that we can provide to keep people living in their own home or with their families, even as their illness progresses, we try to do. And the best way to do that is to work with other agencies and services in communities. We don’t want to duplicate what anyone else is doing,” Matt Walker said, in an interview in Sharbot Lake this week. He works with agencies such as Land O’Lakes and Rural Frontenac Community Services who provide Community Support Services in the same region as he covers.

As part of this work, Walker has been making presentations to councils about his services, and this week he appeared before the Central Frontenac Council. Since his territory basically covers the highway 7 corridor, he was joined in Central Frontenac by Sandy Whaley from Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS). She oversees Visiting Hospice and Bereavement Services for SFCS, a similar program to Compassionate Care, for people living in South Frontenac and the southern part of Central Frontenac.

“We have a very good working relationship with Sandy and Southern Frontenac Community Services, and since both of our programs are based on volunteers, we make sure that everyone is covered,” he said.

Walker has been working at Compassionate Care for a year, and has learned a fair bit about the communities in Addington Highlands and North and Central Frontenac.

“People are very connected to their local communities and townships in both North Frontenac and Addington Highlands. They care for their neighbours. Keeping them in the community, with support, even when they are getting frail, is worth the effort.”

Twice a year, the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area (CFKA) makes grant announcements for community groups and not-for-profits in Kingston. Most of the time, Frontenac County based groups receive grants as well.

There was an exception in late November of last year, when all of the grants went to Kingston. With its spring grant announcement, the CFKA has made it clear that those fall 2018 grants were not the beginning of a trend. This time around, fully one third of the grants, representing over 25% of the $160,000 that was divvied out went to programming for Frontenac County residents.

And the money is going to every corner of the vast county.

The six Frontenac recipients were: the Elbow Lake Environmental Centre (Perth Road area) $9,000, the Clarendon-Miller Archives (Plevna) $6550, Wintergreen Studios (Bedford) $3283, South Frontenac Community Services Corporation (Sydenham) $10,041.20, Rural Frontenac Community Services (Sharbot Lake) $5,500, and RKY Camp (Parham) $8946.06 – over $43,000 in all.

The Elbow Lake Environmental Centre grant is for the "Navigating the Landscape" program. The program will provide the opportunity for youth to actively experience their local environment while learning how to use GPS technology, with the money going towards equipment and bus subsidies to bring youth to the centre.

The Clarendon Miller Archives grant is going towards the "Unravelling History - One Tombstone at a Time" project and the creation of a worldwide searchable on-line database providing historical reference and research of the local cemeteries in North Frontenac, with images to link families with their ancestors and village settlements via a website.

The Wintergreen Studios grant is going to Project Bee. It will help establish an apiary at Wintergreen, which, coupled with year-round workshops, will educate the general public about maintaining healthy bee populations. Project Bee will also enable local schools to join the Bee City Canada school network. Students will have an opportunity to exchange knowledge with beekeepers in Saudi Arabia through a school in Riyadh.

The Southern Frontenac Community Services grant is going to enhance the agencies home making services program, to enable more physically and financially vulnerable seniors to remain living at home safely.

The Rural Frontenac Community Services grant will be used to help fund a ride sharing program, enabling more seniors to attend social events, medical appointments and shopping so more people can participate fully in the community.

The RKY camp grant is going towards the purchase of a new 36” flat top griddle with an oven and holding cabin, to help in the preparation of 600 nutritious and delicious meals to active RKY campers each and every day during the summer camp season.

“A common theme we saw this round in the applications were projects that aim to create a sense of belonging in our community,” says Community Foundation for Kingston & Area (CFKA) Executive Director Tina Bailey. “We know that providing opportunities for engagement, inclusion and participation are some of the strategies to decrease social isolation. This is particularly true for some of our neighbours, especially youth, newcomers, seniors and those with disabilities.”

Long serving Rural Frontenac Community Services (RFCS) Treasurer Bob Webster was named Volunteer of the Year at the agencies Volunteer Appreciation Dinner on Monday Night (April 29)

“Bob originally came to RFCS to volunteer with the income tax program, where he was recognized as a skilled experienced financial ‘guy’ and quickly recruited for the Board of Directors. It didn’t take long for him to take on the role of treasurer where he has been a vital contributor to the agency,” said RFCS Executive Director Louise Moody as she announced the award.

Moody describe Webster as a “quiet leader with insight and foresight that are both extremely valuable when managing through the minefield of government regulations, funding and bureaucracy.

She also said that his “positive attitude, ability to see all sides of an issue and his unwavering commitment to Rural Frontenac Community Services over the last eight years is remarkable. He is held in high esteem by the board, who all value his contribution and appreciate the opportunity to work with him.”

He has served as RFCS treasurer for 8 years.

In an email to the News on Tuesday (April 30), he said he was “surprised and honoured to be recognized as the Volunteer of the Year.

“In particular, I was humbled to be in the company of so many other volunteers who were in attendance. Whether providing drives for folks to attend medical appointments, delivering meals on wheels, assisting with social activities such as Diners or any number of other contributions, these volunteers cover hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and donate tens of thousands of hours of their time to making life better for their neighbours in rural Frontenac.”

RFCS operates programs for children, youth, adults and seniors. Over fifty of the agencies’ volunteers attended the annual appreciation dinner this week.

Vandeross consulting (Ella Vanderburg and Katie Ross) is a new consulting company with a focus on helping small businesses in Kingston and Frontenac County.

They were approached recently by an organisation called Rural by Purpose to see if they wanted to participate in a pilot project that is focused on something that is normally associated with urban environments, freelance workers needing office space.

“We thought this idea was interesting, and approached Richard Allen to see if Frontenac County would like to participate in this, and when he said yes, we decided to give it a go,” said Katie Ross in a phone interview this week.

The local version of the project is called Coworking in Frontenac, and the week of May 6-10 is the target week for the project. During that week, participating Frontenac County businesses will be opening their doors and providing space for freelancers to work out of some unused space within their offices.

Vanderburg and Ross brought the coworking challenge concept to the April meeting of Frontenac County Council and have been helping find suitable locations over the last couple of weeks.

“So far we have found there are more people looking for places to set up than there are locations, and it looks like the main thing that freelancers in Frontenac County are looking for is reliable Internet service which many don’t have at home.”

An important aspect of coworking week, and one of the major goals of Rural on Purpose, which was co-founded by Belleville based Mary Doyle, is to retain and attract younger workers to rural communities. In blogs posted on the Rural on Purpose site, Doyle makes it clear that she believes it is only through retention and in-migration of youth that rural communities will survive. In one case, at the end of an entry, she talks directly to millennials, saying, “Do you want to create new ways of doing business? What support do you need from us?”

According to a media release from Frontenac County, the majority of the workforce is predicted to be freelance within a decade, and seventy-four percent of millennials are currently freelancing. Global coworking spaces are projected to grow from 14,411 in 2017 to just over 30,000 in 2022.

"More and more we find that people are working from their homes, so it has become important to let remote workers and entrepreneurs know they have places to connect in our communities. The Coworking Takeover Challenge is a great way to start thinking about how we can be freelance friendly," said Richard Allen, Manager of Economic Development at the County of Frontenac.

So far, a number of locations have committed to having space available for the coworking week, including the township office in Frontenac Islands, the Frontenac County office, Rural Frontenac Community Services offices in Sydenham and both of their Sharbot Lake locations, and Holiday Country Manor in Battersea.

Information about locations is available at coworkfrontenac.com by clicking on participating vendors. Further down the page, there is an option for both freelancers and potential hosts to register. The site also includes a voluntary survey.

“A major goal of the pilot is to identify the need for coworking within the four municipalities. Our goal is to bring together existing business with those working in isolation and providing access to resources such as reliable internet services, networking opportunities and business support,” said Ella Vanderburg.

“As we have gotten into it, we are seeing that we might need to extend the week to a couple of weeks to get the word out and get a true sense of the potential in Frontenac County. That will also give us time to locate more vendors throughout the county,” said Katie Ross. “We think the demand is there.”

Ross and Vanderburg will be monitoring the pilot to see how it is progressing, just as they are establishing their own permanent headquarters on Sydenham Road.

For further information, go to coworkfrontenac.com, or call /email Vandeross at 613-777-2200, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The cost of providing rides to seniors and others (for medical appointments, other appointments and shopping/entertainment) is very expensive, Frontenac Transportation Services administrator Gail Young told North Frontenac Council at its regular meeting last Friday in Plevna.

Young, along with Rural Frontenac Community Services director Louise Moody were there at Council’s request, which came at a previous Council meeting in Harlowe.

“Being raised in Henderson, I know the challenges,” Young said. “One of the big issues in this area is that the LHIN (Local Health Integration Network) will only pay for the time the client is in the car so we have to pay for getting drivers to the client.
“We’re working on keeping those costs down.”

“Our problem is geography,” said Moody. “It’s a long way to anywhere and we don’t have a hub like say Bancroft does.

“We’re trying a number of different programs (a Trillium application in 2016 was unsuccessful).”

The average ride in South Frontenac costs $30. The average ride in Central Frontenac costs $55 but the average ride in North Frontenac costs $91.

With 301 rides from April 1 to Dec. 31, North Frontenac accounted for 7 per cent of the ridership. However, at a cost of $41,033, it also accounted for 16 per cent of the total costs. Central Frontenac had 2,511 rides or 56 per cent and 56 per cent of the costs at $140,144. South Frontenac had 1,709 rides or 37 per cent for $68,918 or 28 per cent of the costs.

“It is expensive but I know at least two elderly ladies who are too proud to ask for a subsidy,” said Coun. Gerry Martin.

“We don’t like to call it a subsidy, we say ‘you pay half,’” said Young.

“If the LHIN’s goal is for seniors to age at home, then these programs have to be free,” said Moody.

Mayor Ron Higgins made a friendly amendment to a resolution to publicize the service and call for volunteer drivers.

He also suggested the County could become involved but “if we’re going to ask the County for money then we have to include all four Townships.”

• • •

North Frontenac formally passed its 2018 budget which is now available on the Township website. North Frontenac is asking its ratepayers for 1.42 per cent more than it did in 2017 or $5,765,957. Property assessment increased by 2.48 per cent and while the education portion of the tax bill decreased by 2.82 per cent, the County portion increased by 4.19 per cent.

• • •

This was the first meeting in the new Council Chambers. It’s certainly larger than the room over the fire garage with more room for spectators, a larger municipality style horseshoe arrangement for Council and surprisingly good acoustics.

Lilly Legacy-Zierer picked up the drumming bug playing the snare in her high school marching band. From there, she moved on to a Djembe troupe, the Fire Drums Festival and a host of other percussive pursuits.

And now, she’s the leader of the Frontenac Skies Community Drummers, a group of a dozen drummers ranging in age from 8-13.

“We’re currently rehearsing for the Frontenac’s Got Talent Show, Feb. 16,” she said while putting the kids through their paces at Rural Frontenac Community Services Child Centre in Sharbot Lake.

Armed with support from Blue Skies in the Community, a grant from Community Foundation of Kingston and Area and some buckets donated by Home Hardware in Sharbot Lake, Legacy-Zierer has embarked on a journey to bring world drumming styles together in the northern Frontenacs.

“I was assistant choir director for Young Choristers North when some bucket drummers came and I said ‘why aren’t we doing this?,’” she said. “I went to GREC and told them I’d do this on a volunteer basis and we had 28 students.

“But how can we make this sustainable?”

So, she partnered with Blue Skies in the Community and Rural Frontenac Community Services.

“The sole purpose of this is to have a performance-ready group to support community events, like the Heritage Festival and Santa Claus Parades,” she said.

And, it also gives kids the change to let off some steam.

“Drummers have a lot of energy,” she said. “And this is a way to channel it.

“This is something brand new and it’s based on the West African Dun Dun style of drumming so it’s not only drumming but movement too.”

She said they started off with rudimentary beats using recycled materials and gradually started adding world styles.

“Our bass drum is an old tire I had,” she said. “But it’s extremely rewarding.

“I regularly get parents thanking me.”

She said she’d like to build the program with an international drumming group of high school students and they’ll be holding open auditions for the current group in late February.

“We’ll likely bring in one or two more but that might be difficult because most of the kids say ‘I’m not leaving,’” she said. “My Grade 8 student, Draven Caddick, said he’s coming back to help when he gets to high school to get his volunteer hours.”