submitted by Wendy Embleton
Another Canada Day is in the bag. For your Kemptville District Community Association, July 2nd feels like another rotation around the sun, the end and the beginning. As we lead up to the event, we try to build the excitement while giving thanks to our sponsors and our municipality. It’s the day after when we sit back and think of how all the moving parts came together.
I am proud of what the KDCA has accomplished in these short few years, promoting community cohesion and self reliance through positive change. Thank you to all who have supported us in our endeavours and who support our communities. The small community feel doesn’t come from streets and homes that were built many years ago, it comes from us and our engagement. Canada Day 2023, if you watched closely, was all about our community.
Groups of children played together safely racing back and forth between activities. Adults were stopping randomly to say hi to someone they hadn’t seen in some time. Introductions were made, connections were made. Judy Beveridge in the early hours literally offered up the sweater off her back. Mary Ann Leang, my personal mentor, showed us all once again that heroes don’t always wear capes. Samantha RivetStevenson (former KDCA Vice President) and Tracy McDonald (current KDCA Board member) slugged and arranged and took charge! Tammy Hurlbert’s passion for the community exceeds her position at the Municipality. Tammy has attended at least 97% of the KDCA meetings since its inception. She is an advocate for the community. She helps direct, she guides ‘when we let her’. North Grenville is blessed to have this woman on staff. Marguerite Boyer, co-owner of The NG Times, in the weeks leading up to the event was invaluable with her artistic wow and support. If you saw me looking at my phone on Canada Day it was probably to answer one of Maggie’s many texts checking in. Herb and Debra Cloutier (aka Jamming Around Man Productions) were amazing as well. I can’t imagine any event without having them in charge of the entertainment! The list is longer, so much longer. If I sat down to edit this, in an hour I would have come up with ten more names, but the paper is on a deadline! Throughout the day every person who was ‘working’ at our wonderful event was volunteering their time out of the goodness of their heart and the love of our community. We couldn’t do it without each and every one of you. Never undervalue a kind word or a few minutes of your time. For those I randomly pulled out of the crowds to assist with generators and lugging or to pass on a message, not one person looked at me funny or hesitated. That is North Grenville.
It would be amiss if I didn’t give a shout out to my little one as well. Jagger has been by my side for the past seven years with all these events and every year I am a little more impressed by how responsible he becomes. At 19 now, a young man, I didn’t have to ask him to assist yesterday. In fact, throughout the day, there was very little I had to ask him to do. I watch as he has grown and made his own connections with those in North Grenville, and it makes me feel so thankful to be here. The community really does raise the child if we let it, and I think we have all done a wonderful job with him!
Your Kemptville District Community Association thanks you all, and we look forward to growing and developing more as time passes.
