In the midst of all the bad news lately, here’s a little bit of good news.

Rural Frontenac Community Services has been successful in securing a New Horizons grant in the amount of $13,780 for its SALT (Seniors and Law Enforcement Together) talks luncheon series.

The SALT talks program offer a free lunch for seniors and a talk on things that matter to seniors in terms of health and/or safety. They’ve been becoming more and more popular since being introduced a few years ago.

“We got all that we asked for,” said Catherine Tysick, Adult Centre Manager. “And the fortunate thing is that it’s for one year . . . I suspect we’re going to get off to a slow start.

“We have to schedule a meeting in April (and) personally I don’t think we can move ahead if we don’t have the halls.”

Tysick said that one of the best aspects of the new funding is that it means they can branch out in terms of the topics they offer with lunch — it doesn’t have to be health related.

“We can now branch out to topics that are not health matters but do involve safety such as banking, online shopping and such.

“It’s good to have the OPP’s expertise on this.”

She said they have been in the process of securing caterers for their events.

“Up to this point, we had been using our own staff, who do the Diners events,” she said. “The funding means we can spin it off and have it separate from Diners.”

She said the locations and dates of events are yet to be determined but they do plan to use the money for 12 events — six in Central Frontenac and six in North Frontenac.

She said that if people have ideas for topics they’d like to have covered, they can make suggestions directly to her (613-279-3151, ext; 201)

“When we have the events people will have to RSVP through here, and if people have questions, they can ask me too,” she said.

The much-anticipated Ride Share internet listing from Rural Frontenac Community Services had been scheduled to launch in January. However, a few wrinkles and glitches had to be worked out.

“We came very close to launching,” said RFCS transportation programmer Gail Young. “Then we got calls from Lennox & Addington and Lanark Counties asking if they could participate.”

She said they were currently in process of making adjustments to include the two other counties as well as Frontenac County.

“We’re hoping to be ready before the end of March,” Young said.

One of the changes they’re making to the website is showing where rides are emanating from and where they are going to “show we can share statistics with our Councils,” she said.

“We were ready to go but we’re holding off launching until we can make these additions,” she said. “We don’t want to launch with a bunch of glitches.”

The program had been called Community Car Pool but will now likely be shortened to just Community Car.

The idea is quite simple actually. If you’re looking for a ride to somewhere from somewhere, you put it on the site. If somebody is already going, or willing to take you, the site makes a connection. And vice versa, if you’re going somewhere on a particular day, you can list that and anybody who wants to go with you makes a connection via the web site.

Eight months after Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) pulled out of its agreement with the City of Kingston to provide homelessness prevention services for Frontenac County, a new provider of the service has finally been confirmed.

“It was a regrettable decision that we had to make to stop offering this service.” said SFCS Executive Director David Townsend in announcing the pullout on July 15 of last year.

“We had no real choice because we could not maintain the proper staffing for the program. It is an important service to the community but we were no longer able to provide it. It was also a drain on our resources as an organisation.”

In September, the City of Kingston set out a request for proposal (RFP) for a new provider to provide the service, but no announcement was made about who the successful bidder was.

Through the process, the News learned that at least three organisations responded to the RFP, which stipulated that the service must be provided to residents of South, Central and North Frontenac.

A bid was submitted by Rural Frontenac Community Services, who had been collaborating with Southern Frontenac Community Services to offer the services in Central and North Frontenac. Another bid was submitted by Home Based Housing, a Kingston agency that provides the service in the city and provided interim services to residents of South Frontenac after SFCS stopped offering the service last summer. A third, and ultimately successful proposal, was submitted by the Salvation Army Kingston Citadel Community and Family Services department.

We are attempting to contact both the Kingston Citadel and the Homelessness Prevention Office of the City of Kingston for information about how the program will operate going forward.

The City of Kingston is the consolidated service manager for social programs in Frontenac County. These include: children’s services, daycare services and subsidy, Ontario Works, not-for-profit housing, and homelessness prevention.

The city set out a 10-year homelessness prevention plan for Kingston and Frontenac County in 2014, and the 5-year review of that plan was completed in 2019.

Surveys to determine the number of people in both the city and county who are either homeless, at risk of homelessness, or living in substandard housing, have been completed every second year in April.

The most recent survey, in 2018, determined that there were 61 homeless people in Frontenac County, using the definition of homelessness provided by the Canadian Observatory of Homelessness, which is “those whose accommodation is temporary or lacks security or tenure”.

Wow, what a year 2019 was for New Leaf Link! In January, NeLL was the grateful recipient of a United Way KFLA Grant to implement an Adapted Diabetes Awareness, Prevention & Management Program. This grant provided funding for a project facilitator, instructors and one support person to add a third day of programming (Tuesday) to provide access to health promotion skills around awareness, prevention and management of Type 2 Diabetes. In addition, the Township of South Frontenac contributed funds to allow us to run our first ever summer program. Now NeLL offers 3 days of high-quality programming throughout the year in Arts, Music and Healthy Living and allows disabled participants from South Frontenac to participate in a diverse range of activities, including health, fitness, nutrition, adaptive technology and community participation, including outings to local venues.

The Sydenham Lions Club contributed to our project by delivering a talk about Diabetes. Our program instructors in 2019 included Sensei Marty Tucker from the Sydenham Academy of Martial Arts − our participants did a karate demo and grading at our July Open House. Sara McHattie from the YMCA led Adapted Fitness classes. Deb Donaldson, a certified diabetes educator, dance teacher and fitness and nutrition specialist visited monthly to lead us in dance and diabetes education activities, and Ryan Donoven developed a NeLL soap with our NeLL colours and scents chosen by our participants. Linda Alford, our Adapted Technology Instructor, helped our participants learn about diabetes through various websites and completed six resource books that have been shared with our participants. NeLL parents Tom Jack and Cara Lacelle did presentations on raising backyard chickens and managing diabetes medications. MPP Randy Hillier attended our July Open House and continues to support and promote our program through his website. In August, we visited Bill Welychka at the Global News Morning Show to talk about our program and shared a video of Michael Timmerman’s achievements shooting hoops.

Shen Xiao Bing from Long Road Ecological Farm taught us how to prepare Chinese dumplings from fresh farm ingredients in honour of the Chinese Spring Festival. The KFLA Food Ambassadors visited twice in May and November giving food demonstrations that contributed to NeLL’s Diabetes Project. Our project facilitator and cooking instructor Chris Boal’s Healthy Eating cooking demonstrations were fantastic! The St. John’s Ambulance Therapy Dogs showed us how dogs can offer stress relief. We also had a visit from OPP Community Services Officer Curtis Dick to inform us about on-line safety, and we visited Happy tails Farm Sanctuary in June.

NeLL is most grateful to 3rd party fundraiser Greg Simpson and the Irwin Family for planning and hosting 2 sold-out dances at the Sydenham Legion and golf tournaments in support of NeLL programs. And, not only did NeLL participate in the Sydenham Santa Claus parade, our own Michael Brown led the Kingston Police Pipe and Drum band in the Kingston Santa Claus parade.

We are extremely grateful to our donors, without whose support we could not possibly survive. This includes small community organizations and individuals who understand that there are province-wide gaps in services for adults with disabilities, especially in rural areas. Without our program, disabled adults throughout South Frontenac would be isolated from their friends and would be required to travel great distances to access community supports.

As we enter 2020, NeLL continues to operate without government funding. We have built a strong, resourceful and sustainable rural organization that is unique to our community. In the past year, we have increased our number of participants, our fundraising capabilities, our program resources and our community profile. We invite the community to visit us at our Open Houses, volunteer their time with us and support our fundraising efforts, including our spring and fall Grocery Store fundraisers in Sydenham and Verona.

When you see NeLL out in the local community, please say hello. We love our community and want you to know how important New Leaf Link is to our participants. We truly appreciate your support!

One aspect of last week’s story on the new bus service from Land O’Lakes Community Services is the role the Township played, said community bus coordinator Katie Turl. “LOLCS approached Addington Highlands and the Township approached MTO and put in some money.

“(CAO/Clerk-Treasurer) Christine Reed put it all together.”

“We applied for the grant because only certain organizations are eligible to apply,” Reed said. “It seems like a long time ago, there was a Liberal government when we made the application.”

Reed said the Township pledged $2,000 annually for five years originally (now down to four years) in order to sweeten the application.

“These applications are looked upon more favourably if there’s local support,” Reed said. “It’s not a large financial contribution from us but we are partnering with MTO, who put in $265,505 in provincial funds.”

Reed said the community bus program is scheduled to continue until 2023, at which time it will be re-evaluated based on usage.

“The more it’s used, the greater the chance it will be sustained beyond the funding period,” she said.

Initially, LOLCS will be operating trips to Belleville (Nov. 28). Renfrew (Dec. 5) and Kingston (Dec. 19). These are designed as Christmas shopping excursions but once riders are at the destination, they’re free to do what they want (ie. medical appointments, socializing, etc).

To book a trip or for more information, contact Land O’Lakes Community Services at 613-336-8934, toll-free at 1-877-679-6636 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

June 21 was Aboriginal Day across Canada and locally, Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation combined with EarlyON to join in the celebrations at Oso Beach in Sharbot Lake.

Shabot Obaadjiwan Chief Doreen Davis was visibly enjoying the proceedings, which she confirmed when asked if she was enjoying herself.

“I am,” she said. “This is a joint venture, a collaboration between aboriginal groups and EarlyON.

“We’re bringing knowledge, customs and teachings and they’re bringing funding and education.

“It’s a huge blending of resources and it’s about the little ones.

“Five of my 10 grandchildren are here.”

Aboriginal Day is about sharing culture and building bridges toward reconciliation.

Davis said they’re starting to do just that and she’s looking forward to more joint ventures in the future.

“We want to continue our relationship with the snowshoe program,” she said. “And we’d like to get kids involved in making birch bark canoes.

“We also have an outdoor facility at the cultural centre near the White Lake Fish Hatchery that we’d like to make available in the summer so kids can have activities outdoors instead of having to be inside buildings. We’re looking at two dates in July and two dates in August.”

Rural Frontenac Community Services executive director Louise Moody said they too have found the relationship with Shabot Obaadjiwan mutually beneficial.

“Rural Frontenac Community Services is fully supportive of the partnership between Shabot Obaadjiwan and EarlyOn,” she said. “Aboriginal Day continues to become an important event on June 21 and we appreciate the leadership of Chief Doreen and Marcie (Asselstine) from our staff.”

The day featured a variety of drumming events, crafting/beading, interactive children’s stories with puppets and the Algonquin Strawberry Teaching Ceremony shared by Kokum Makwa.

Tickets for the annual Pine Meadow Special Needs Fund raffle are now on sale at various locations. The proceeds from the raffle sales go towards monthly excursions for the residents at Pine Meadow Nursing Home in Northbrook. This year, the prizes are a beautiful quilt, funded and constructed by the Treadles Quilting Group and a concrete fire pit designed by Tuscany Concrete. Tickets are $3.00 each or 2 for $5.00 and will be sold until the date of this year's Pine Meadow Charity golf tournament on June 22nd. The draw will be held at Pine Meadow that afternoon and will be announced at the tournament at Hunter's Creek. There will only be 2,500 tickets printed so they may not be available for that long. They are available at Bishop Lake, Nowell Motors and at Pine Meadow and will be sold by volunteers at local grocery stores over the next month.

The Special Needs Committee also organizes the annual Pine Meadow Charity Golf Classic at Hunter's Creek golf course. It is the biggest fundraiser that they undertake. Last year, this event raised over $20,000. Tickets for the golf tournament, which include a BBQ lunch and green fees, are a reasonable $55 per person, and are available through Eleanor Nowell at Nowell Motors in Cloyne. Call 613 336 2547 for information.

The funds raised through the raffle and the tournament owe a great deal of their success to the support of the small business community and to families in the surrounding region. The tournament has 80 to 100 sponsors annually and new sponsors are included each year. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please call Laury Hitchcock at 613 336 2394 or Esther Demczak at 613 336 2751.

Over its 16-year history, the tournament has raised thousands of dollars which is all directed towards extras that are not covered in Pine Meadow's funding. The home is a community owned, not for profit enterprise, under the umbrella of Land O' Lakes Community Services. This year, the funds will be used for additional adjustable dining tables, wing chairs for the activity room, heel supports, wheelchair positioning rolls and outdoor storage sheds, as well as all of the monthly outings.

Canada 150 Finale

Canada’s Sesquicentennial is drawing to a close and the people of Central Frontenac should congratulate themselves for having staged a great year. We have marked the occasion with some truly memorable projects.

Each of our community institutions has come through with something special - a heritage video at Parham Fair, special demonstrations by the Arden Fire Department, a Trail day at the Railway Heritage Park in Sharbot Lake and commemorative public benches where we can enjoy our beautiful surroundings. The area’s churches held special services (indoors and out) and supported community events such as the Giving Thanks Dinner. The lake associations got into the act with flotillas on Kennebec, Horseshoe and Long Lakes and tree planting projects on Eagle Lake and Sharbot. And the Frontenac Heritage Festival had a distinctly 150 flavour this year. The Recreation committees made a special contribution to the year with a host of programs in Arden, a fantastic Canada Day in Sharbot Lake and a great Canada 150 float in the Parham Santa Claus parade.

Credit for some of the best projects has to go to the individuals who inspired them – Diane Lake’s 150 stories of 150 women, Virgil Garrett’s goal of 150 (now over 200) visitors to his grandfather clocks, Janet Gutowski’s display of 150 quilts and Jim MacPherson and friends with 150 Canadian songs on quiet evenings in the Oso Park. This one grew into a great evening of Canadian music at GREC – Covering Canada – with profits going to the school music program.

Rural Frontenac Community Services, The Child Centre, supported a focus on youth by partnering with Shabot Obaadjiwan and North Frontenac Little Theatre, in the first case for the Strawberry Moon Festival and the second for a picnic and workshop in the park. The Little Theatre also provided a great next-to-last Canada 150 event with this year’s fall production of Sunshine Sketches of Our Little Town - a delightful retrospective of our community and the wonderful things that happen in it especially those in celebration of our nation’s 150th Birthday.

The Legions started the year with a New Years Day levee in the Arden branch and will end it with a New Years Eve ball to be held in the Sharbot Lake branch. This final event of the year will be a traditional New Year’s Eve party with food, dancing, decorations and door prizes. It is jointly sponsored by the Legion branch and by the District #3 Rec committee. Profits will be divided between the two groups – the Legion share going to meals for shut-ins and the Rec Committee share to the rink project. One special activity will be a draw for the Canada 150 quilt shown in the picture. A few tickets are still available for the dance. They can be purchased at Gray’s Grocery or either Legion Branch. Quilt tickets can be purchased by calling Rosemarie Bowick at 613 279-3341.

Frontenac Transportation secures five-year funding commitment from County

It has been a long time coming for Frontenac Transportation Service (FTS) to finally settle into its relationship with Frontenac County Council.

For years the Council was reluctant to commit to more than a one-time grant of $80,000 each year to the service, always under a neutral heading in the county budget - “Grants to Outside Agencies”.

The reason for this was a reluctance, expressed most often by former South Frontenac mayor, Gary Davison, to see the county “trapped into running an expensive transportation service. I'm afraid we will see costs increase every year until we are paying hundreds of thousands,” he said.

At county budget meetings five or six years ago, the debate about the $80,000 grant would be one of the longest discussions in the $40 million budget exercise, but over time that concern has slipped away.

Part of the reason was that the $80,000 request never did jump up as Davison expected. The other part was that the service has continued to grow incrementally, providing rides to medical appointments, daycare services, and shopping for vulnerable sectors of the county’s population, including seniors.

By the time Davison was getting ready to leave municipal politics, he had changed his attitude towards the service. At a budget meeting in 2013, he said, “I would support a long term commitment to FTS, and if it needs more than $80,000, that's fine with me as well.”

The funding has increased, and now stands at $96,000 per year, a portion for administration, and a portion to help fund rides. Other agencies, such as Ontario Works, the Local Health Integration Network and the Ontario Disability Support Program pay for rides for their own clients, and other clients pay fees themselves.

Louise Moody from Northern Frontenac Community Services (NFCS) the lead agency for FTS, and David Townsend from the partner agency Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) made their annual visit to Frontenac County Council in mid-December. They were able to report that FTS has provided 5,852 rides for clients in South, Central, and North Frontenac, and that the volunteer drivers who provide the service traveled over $650,000 kilometres and received over $250,000 in reimbursement for mileage.

The numbers have increased over time and are set to increase again at the end of the fiscal year in March of 2016.

FTS service is delivered out of an office in Sharbot Lake.

“We like to have three days’ notice to help us match drivers to rides, but we are able to find rides within a day when clients need them,” said Louise Moody.

“The biggest concern we have is with volunteer drivers. We have about 60, 30 in South Frontenac and 30 in Central and North Frontenac, but we are always looking for more,” said David Townsend.

“With the average age of our drivers becoming older and older, we are getting caught by the same demographic shift that the entire county and region are seeing,” he added.

“I wholly support this service,” said Councilor John McDougall. “They are covering a need and doing it efficiently.”

His view was echoed by that of Councilor John Inglis from North Frontenac.

South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal asked if $96,000 per year for five years was going to cover FTS costs.

“We see no need for an increase,” said David Townsend.

Councilor Natalie Nossal from Frontenac Islands asked whether the service was planning to expand to Wolfe and Howe Islands.

“We have looked into that and the VON [Victorian Order of Nurses] provide transportation in Kingston. They said that if we can find drivers to bring people to the ferry dock in Kingston from Wolfe Island they can take them from there. The same is true for Howe Island, but we need to know if there is a need and if drivers can be found on the islands,” said Townsend.

“If it can be arranged, we can dispatch the rides for the islands just as we do for the rest of the County,” said Louise Moody.

On October 24, staff at Community Living-North Frontenac (CL-NF), were joined by many of the individuals they support along with a lively group of supporters from the local community at large, who together enjoyed a very memorable evening at the hall of St. James Major Catholic Church in Sharbot Lake.

The event, which attracted close to 100 costumed revelers, was the organization’s first ever Halloween-themed Masquerade Ball fundraiser. Community Living-North Frontenac is dedicated to providing individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families with equal opportunities to achieve independence and social acceptance in their communities, and the Saturday evening ball showed that they are succeeding in doing just that.

Marcel Quenneville, manager of supports and services with CL-NF, thought up the idea for the fundraiser with the hopes of making a splash in the community. The event not only achieved that goal but was a fun and memorable way for staff, the individuals they support and the community at large to come together while raising funds for the organization.

Emcee Brian Robertson said that when he was approached to host the event, he suggested that one of his former students, Johnathon Wisteard, whom he taught for years at Land O'Lakes Public School and who is now a grade 12 student at Granite Ridge, be offered the role as co-host. Robertson felt that Wisteard, who is one the many individuals that CL-NF supports, would be a stellar co-host at the ball due his love and keen knack for performing. He said, “Johnathon is someone who really loves to perform. It seemed a perfect fit for this event and demonstrates how the organization is striving to put the individuals they support front and center in the community.”

Wisteard nailed his role as co-emcee and thanked CL-NF for the many memorable opportunities that have come his way. Those have included a trip to Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto and a visit to Eastern Cowboy Outfitters near Parham, among many others.

Guests enjoyed a fabulous assortment of hot and cold hors d'oeuvres and a midnight meal courtesy of Primitive Catering as well as live musical entertainment from the local flute trio Toute Ensemble, and the Alan and Brian Duo.

Later in the evening guests danced to the tunes of local DJ Dave Barr, and Town Crier Paddy O'Connor also made a speech.

Dean Walsh, executive director of CL-NF, was dressed to the nines and was challenged to a memorable Can-Can dance competition. Walsh said the event was more about celebrating than fundraising and he was pleased to see so many members of the community take part.

Over 80 gift items were donated from the local community and were up for grabs in a silent auction. They included original art works, numerous gift certificates and more.

Brian Robertson, under the hat of president of the North Frontenac Little Theatre, headed up the hall's complete and astounding transformation into a mysterious, dimly lit, elegantly decorated night time haunt where white and black theatre face cut outs hung from the ceiling and metres of gold fabric fanned out from the centre of the room.

Judging from the turn out and the celebratory feeling, staff at CL-NF definitely not only made a splash but have started a wave.