Six Haliburton County residents were awarded King Charles III Coronation Medals March. 4.
MP Jamie Schmale handed out the honours to Ken Mott and Brenda Boomhouer in Highlands East, and Rev.
Joan Cavanaugh-Clark, Dick Schell, Lynda Litwin and Fay Martin in Minden.
Schmale said, “there are a large number of people doing some amazing things in our community; volunteer work that goes unrecognized, but all of it together makes our community a better place.”
The day began for Schmale and his assistant, Andrew Hodson, at the Wilberforce Legion.
Nominator Tina Jackson, who is executive director of the Central Food Network (CFN), said Mott started out as the
volunteer manager of the then Wilberforce Food Bank. He got municipal support, and Ontario Trillium Foundation
funding, to create the Highlands East Food Hub and CFN. He co-founded Heat Bank Haliburton County. It’s believed he volunteers 30 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, drives 25,000 kilometres, and manages a team of 22 volunteers at the food hub. He also picks up, splits and delivers firewood.
Mott said he was a recipient of community help years ago and that brought him to the food bank work.
“I totally wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t know exactly what it even was until Tuesday”, he said of the medal.
Boomhouer established a Vet-to-Vet fishing program. She said her award was also a, “total surprise and an extreme honour. I couldn’t have done it alone. Our volunteers are very important to the success. The Vet-to-Vet participants call it a family. They come in as strangers and go home with a family.”
St. Paul’s Anglican Church was the venue for Cavanaugh-Clark’s medal ceremony. Nominator Deacon Martha Waind said Cavanaugh-Clark doesn’t just lead a congregation, but oversees a thrift shop. Money is also donated to local charities, and to the Bishop McAllister Anglican
Church School in Africa, an orphanage for kids who have lost their parents to AIDS.
Waind also talked about her colleague’s community outreach, saying she has a unique ability to see a problem and find a solution.”
Cavanaugh-Clark said, “today I get this medal because all of you support me and the ideas I have.”
Making Haliburton Highlands special
Marilynne Lesperance nominated Schell. She said he served with the OPP auxiliary from 1967 to 2013, and remains an OPP guard. He’s been involved in youth justice, the food bank, Minden Rotary, the Kinsmen Club, Haliburton Highlands Health Services, St. Paul’s Anglican Church, the Legion, The Masonic Lodge, been a volunteer fireman and ambulance attendant, a housing advocate, and sat on municipal committees. “Do you think he
deserves this?”
Schell thanked Lesperance and Diane Peacock for nominating him, and his wife and family, “because every time I was out volunteering, she was home looking after the fort. Thank you to all those people that supported me when I was volunteering.”
Andy Campbell nominated Litwin for her volunteer work in Minden for the past 20 years. She’s been a Rotary president twice, spearheaded events such as Canada Day and Rotaryfest, golf tournaments, helped out at municipal events, and on municipal committees. “She volunteers for everything, contributes to everything,
participates in everything, and never seems to get tired,” Campbell said.
An emotional Litwin said it was an “unbelievable honour.” She thanked her friends and Rotary family for attending.
Susan Tromanhauser nominated Martin. She said Martin had worked as a community organizer since the 1960s. She’s done social work across the country. Through her business, she helped grassroots organizations push for change. She was founding executive director of today’s Point in Time Centre for Children. In 2007, Martin created Places for People. She’s also been on the board of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Housing Corporation; founded the Minden Hills housing task force; and is a director for Habitat for Humanity Peterborough and Kawartha Region. She has also been heavily involved in the arts over the years.
A surprised Martin said she arrived in the community in 1997, and has lived here longer than anywhere as an adult. “This is really a wonderful community to live in.” She also felt it was a great community to do research, “because you can have an idea and go stand in the grocery store and find five people that think that’s a good idea
and make it happen.”
Schmale said, “we’d like to nominate many more but we only have so many medals. Pretty much everyone I see in this room (the Minden Legion) has volunteered in some capacity, did something amazing, and each and every one is a piece to the puzzle that makes Haliburton Highlands so special.”
Kinmount’s Keith Stata has also been awarded a medal, and others are expected to be given to County residents soon.
