4—A flurry of email and telephone complaints kept the Meals on Wheels program alive in Creston until the fall. The controversy started when word got out that Meals on Wheels, a program in which volunteers deliver hot, hospital-prepared dinners to homes three times a week, would be discontinued. Clients were to be informed that the program would end on July 12, to be replaced by Interior Health’s Dinners @ Home program, which offers case lots of frozen meals prepared at Penticton Regional Hospital.
•Canadian troops in Afghanistan were able to hoist their favourite regional brew, including Kokanee, to toast Canada Day, thanks to employees of Labatt Breweries of Canada. Beer from each Labatt brewery across the country was shipped to the remote Asian country, following a tradition of troop support dating back to the Second World War, when Labatt opened the Motor Mechanics Army Trade School to train soldiers as mechanics.
11—Only 11 days after Bill Dyck and Derek Doyle took their concerns about food truck licensing costs to Creston town council, the entrepreneurial pair got their answer. Council held a special meeting on July 5 to approve an interim exception to bylaws regulating mobile vendors. The Purple People Feeder ice cream and hotdog truck was allowed to set up in Centennial Park through September, with the vendors paying $150 for the seasonal license.
•Creston police spent another week responding to reports of thefts from unlocked vehicles, but a suspect was identified in the two-week-long spree, said Staff Sgt. Bob Gollan. Police suspected two or more people were roaming the streets at night, testing vehicle doors. They searched unlocked ones for valuables, and more than 20 reports were received from town residents.
18—When it became clear that two of their four kids wanted to be in the dairy business, Randy and Carla Terpstra knew the farm Randy’s dad started farming in Chilliwack in 1971 was too small. But on the Creston flats, they found a parcel of more than 400 acres on land reclaimed in a 1930s diking project, with good growing conditions, availability of water and no suburban conflicts, just other farming neighbours.
“There is just farming here,” said Bryan Terpstra, who manages the new farm with his dad. “There are no worries about encroachment and conflict with neighbours.”
25—Over 150 people attended a reception for federal Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau when he stopped at Erickson’s Truscott Farms on July 21 as part of a whirlwind tour of Western Canada.
During the last federal election, “there was tremendous interest from around here,” the 41-year-old Trudeau told the Advance after the reception. “I’m not giving up on any places in Canada as places where the Liberals aren’t relevant.”
Those places include small towns, which, he said, are just as important as larger centres.
“People tend to forget that’s what Canada is,” said Trudeau. “We’re a country of big cities but with small towns scattered across this beautiful land.”
•Events at the Creston and District Community Complex are going unnoticed, said a local committee, and a digital message board on Canyon Street would increase awareness. Committee member Signe Miller had been told by people from out of town — and even some locals — that they have driven right past the Canyon Street-19th Avenue North intersection without realizing the community complex is even there.
RDCK funds are too limited to purchase the $20,000-$25,000 board, but Miller’s committee researched grants and found a non-profit organization willing to apply for one. The Town of Creston and the owner of the Kal Tire property were also consulted, and the sign could go on either the tire shop’s property or a small strip of adjacent town land.