July 6, 2021
A hiking program designed for families has been launched for the year by the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy. The group’s Amelia Hansen tells WSJM News the Hike Our Preserves, or HOP, program is intended to get people to enjoy the great outdoors at the conservancy’s eleven preserves. You get started by buying a $7 hiking stick.
“We encourage people to take the stick and hike ten out of eleven preserves that we’ve made available in southwest Michigan,” Hansen said. “We cover a nine county area. For ever preserve that they hike, they get a special medallion.”
A hiking stick is $7, and they can be bought at a variety of locations we have listed at our website. They’re made out of an invasive plant species. Hansen says more than 650 people have taken part in the HOP program since it started five years ago.
June 29, 2021
By Chris Drost
Sandra Barnes of the Alzheimer Society, Hastings Prince Edward, recently presented CEO and head librarian of the North Hastings Public Library, Kim McMunn, was with a Certificate of Participation for the Dementia Friendly Communities and Finding Your Way Training. Event coordinator at NHPL, Natalie Phillips, also completed the pilot project.
According to online resources at https://alzheimer.ca/hpe/en/home, by the end of this decade it is anticipated that there will be almost one million people in Canada living with dementia. This is why training in building a dementia-friendly Canada is so important. The Dementia-Friendly Canada project is using a “person-first” approach to ensure all Canadians living with dementia feel valued and empowered, ensure all organizations are inclusive and accessible and that through awareness of dementia, changes can be made individually and as a society.
May 11, 2021
By Chris Drost
Used batteries. They can often be found in the kitchen junk drawer, thrown in there when they no longer work. But now, the good news is that North Hastings Public Library, in partnership with Raw Materials Company, a registered battery hauler and process with Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority, will be collecting used household batteries at the library.
“Not only is this good for the environment, but it will help generate some income from being a battery collection site,” says library CEO/head librarian Kim McMunn.
Recycling batteries helps divert hazardous heavy metals such as mercury and lead from landfill sites. It also helps preserve natural resources be reducing the need to mine more of these precious materials.
May 5, 2021
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Baseball for Dad’s Knocking Stigma out of the Park Community Scavenger Hunt had to be postponed recently due to the current provincial lockdown from COVID-19. According to Baseball for Dad’s Louri Snider, this was done at the direction of Hastings Prince Edward Public Health. Snider hopes to reschedule the event for sometime later this summer or in the fall.
Baseball for Dad is a non-profit charity set up in honour of Mark Snider who tragically lost his battle with mental illness, taking his own life in 2019. It was set up in Mark’s honour by his mom Louri, to take the stigma away from mental illness. Since their inception, they’ve come up with a plethora of initiatives like placing baseball gloves around the world (as baseball was Mark’s favourite sport), the Buddy Bench program, their Kindness Moose program and their Moosing Around party rental business.