I was assigned a story on the Slave Lake fundraising in Bonnyville last Monday at the end of the day, when we usually have our story meetings after a long day of production. I left work concerned about the story, because I wasn't sure who to contact or if Bonnyville would even have any major fundraising efforts for Slave Lake. To be honest, I wasn't even sure where Slave Lake was, except that it was north of Edmonton somewhere.
I was pulling into my driveway when I heard a chorus of, "Buy water for Slave Lake!" and "Buy water for a dollar—or 85 cents will do!"
I glanced over to see a group of children clustered around a makeshift water stand, waving their arms in the air wildly and brandishing a sleeve of paper cups. They hollered and shouted until I went over, accepted my handful of change, and gratefully said, "That's so much, you can have two cups of water."
There wasn't much change in their money bucket, but their enthusiasm was undiminished, and as I walked away with my water, they had already returned to their cries.
"Water for Slave Lake!"
I popped into a store early the next morning and standing in line, I watched as two people who had just purchased a number of bags of personal items and pet food pulled out a cheque from L'École des Beaux-Lacs to pay for it, all of it for donations to Slave Lake.
The woman behind the counter told me that people had been pouring in since Sunday to pick up things the victims of the fires in Slave Lake might need.
That afternoon, I learned about the Centennial Centre's semi truck and their Stuff the Truck campaign, and by then, I wasn't surprised at all to hear half the truck was full already, and cars had been lining up to drop off bags and bags full of goods.
Everyone I spoke to had pretty much the same thing to say about the generosity of the Bonnyville residents, and the word they used over and over again was "amazing."
I think it's pretty amazing too. The fires that ravaged Slave Lake were awful, but the reaction Bonnyville and other communities have had is pretty inspiring.
