For over 30 years a number of ladies with the Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church have been spending their winter months designing quilts and care packages destined for people in need around the globe.

Phyllis Mason, one of the ladies who helps sew and pin the quilts, said the group designed 57 60″x80″ quilts this year between January and Easter. These quilts were on display last Monday at the annual Redeemer Lutheran Church Tea, which is held to raise money for the Canadian Lutheran World Relief We Care program that ships the quilts to destinations around Canada and the world.

In addition to the quilts, the ladies showcased nine sewing kits, four children’s kits, four hygiene kits, 12 baby layettes and over 20 pneumonia prevention vests for infants and toddlers as well as a few other items that will be also be shipped to refugees and orphanages in needy countries.

“It’s a humanitarian thing to do,” said Mason, noting the ladies have no idea where their work is headed. “We in this country have so much. We don’t know how lucky we are.”

Mason said the five or six ladies who are involved in sewing and pinning the quilts try to use heavier materials such as polyesters and heavy cottons in their design. The materials used are generally donations to the group for the work.

She said the other handiwork such as blankets and the items in the various kits and bundles are also donated to the group or supplied by the members. These items include things like thread, buttons and needles for the sewing kits or soap, toothbrush, toothpaste and “something fuzzy” in the children’s kits.

The group gets together during the winter months to assemble these bundles and sew the quilts on donated sewing machines. They also spend time at home completing the work in time for the May tea.

“We believe it helps,” said Mason, who has been involved with the program since it began. “The people that receive them really need them.”

The Hanley School Drama Club production Pandora exceeded the expectations of its writer and director this season thanks in large part to the hard work and fantastic performances displayed by the various students who put the play on.

“I like this production the best personally probably because I’d had some opportunity to do it twice before, so it was a lot of fine-tuning,” said Prairie South School Division special education resource teacher Leanne Griffin. She recently served as director of her play Pandora at Provincials earlier this month in Regina after Hanley School won Regionals.

“The first time I did it at Hanley we had younger actors whereas this script I worked with most of them for a couple of years (already). They are still a pretty young group, but they’ve had some experience working with me,” she added. “I painted the set this year. I had a vision of how I wanted that to look, so I was happy how that turned out. And (it was) just a really strong group of kids, so that worked out really well.”

Pandora is the story about twin sisters Becky (Nicola Classen) and Pandora (Hannah Fehr). The title character is disabled and can’t talk or move independently, but through a magical musical ritual can enter a child-like fantasy world inhabited by a chorus (Taylor Seymour, Morgan Lester, Lauren Griffin, Megan Fehr and Lizzy Ettinger) where she can speak and move.

The play concerns Becky who is about to leave school and is faced with the difficult decision of whether she should leave home and her sister knowing that their mother cannot care for Pandora by herself. In essence, it is a play about transitions, hope and despair.

“I’ve enjoyed every time I’ve done it,” said Griffin, noting she first staged the play 16 years ago when she worked at Allan School and then again 12 years ago at Hanley. “I had the benefit of learning from what I’ve done before and adding it to this group’s performance.”

The play had a dream finish at Provincials held May 8 to 10 at the University of Regina Riddell Theatre. Pandora crew stage manger Alana Pauli won the Debbie Baker Cheer Award and Hanley School Drama Club actors Hannah Fehr, Nicola Classen and Taylor Seymour each won a certificate of merit for acting.

Also, Pandora’s lighting crew member Truman Griffin took home a best technical performance award, Alana and assistant stage manager Shelby Millions shared the best stage manager award and the play itself took the runner-up to best visual production award.

Griffin said this is quite the achievement considering Hanley has an extra-curricular drama program where rehearsals and instruction takes place solely outside regular school hours, while the 10 other plays they competed against involve city school productions with hundreds of students studying drama as part of their high school credit programs.

“In a way we’re like an underdog because 100 per cent of what we do is after hours, but that being said I think we have a very tight group,” she said. “We call it the drama family. They are a really tight group of kids and they take a lot of pride and ownership and work extra hard because it is 100 per cent their own time.”

An alarming increase in all-terrain vehicle deaths and injuries has prompted the Saskatchewan All-Terrain Vehicle Association (SATVA) to launch a province-wide campaign this spring to promote the use of helmets for ATV drivers and passengers along with other general safety measures.

John Meed, general manager of SATVA, said there were eight fatalities involving ATVs in this province last year and in five of those deaths the rider of the machine wasn’t wearing a helmet. He said this is a “record” mortality rate in Saskatchewan, so SATVA feels they have to remind people of the dangers of operating the vehicles without taking appropriate safety precautions.

Wearing a helmet “can obviously save your life,” said Meed. “It can save you from serious brain injuries and we think it is a message that needs to get out.”

Meed said it is the law in Saskatchewan to wear a helmet when riding an ATV on public property. He said a person also has to wear goggles when operating an ATV if the helmet doesn’t have a face screen.

“We’d love people on their own property to wear their helmet too,” he said. “We know that the farming community is one that rides a lot on their own property, on their own land, and we’d like to promote that they wear their helmets as well.”

Along with eight deaths involving ATVs in 2013, there were also 47 injuries resulting from ATV accidents. This was the second highest injury rate in 14 years.

Since 2000, 50 people have been killed and 442 have been injured while riding an ATV. There has already been one death and injury in the province involving unsafe ATV use in 2014 after a 40-year-old man was killed and his 14-year-old passenger injured in what is believed to be an alcohol-related accident near Togo earlier this month.

Meed said an ATV tends to be a more bumpy and rocky ride than what someone experiences in a car, so people need to be in control of their faculties when driving the machine. He said a wrong decision or wrong reaction could cause the vehicle to flip over or hit something resulting in a bad injury or death.

Proper ATV training is also important for any riders of the machines. Meed said this can be accomplished through taking either the SATVA training course or one offered by the Canadian Safety Council.

To read more please see the May 19 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Helen’s Run was first organized five years ago as a small gathering of friends and family to honour a loved Dundurn grandmother while also raising some funds towards a cure for the disease that took her life.

Considering Helen’s Run 2014 already has participants registered from as far away as British Columbia and a goal of raising over $5,000 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, this year’s five-kilometre charity walk and run is shaping up to be much more than originally envisioned.

“It’s kind of exciting that it’s getting that big,” said Logan Williams, co-organizer of the May 31 event that takes place at the Dundurn Military Base. “It’s a lot more professional. We have t-shirts now and we’re working with The Running Room for our registration and event planning. It’s becoming more of an actual event instead of just some friends getting together.”

Logan said people who register for the walk and run through The Running Room website or by emailing her at helensrun@yahoo.ca for a small fee that is donated to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation can basically expect a morning of food and fellowship. She said her grandmother Helen enjoyed spending time with family and friends before she passed away in 1993 after a courageous battle with breast cancer, so the race is meant to celebrate those values.

“My grandmother was well known for hosting get-togethers,” said Logan. “She loved seeing her family. I’ve had lots of comments lately about how many kids at the time in this community called her ‘mum’ even though they weren’t related to her. She loved to have people over and see her family get together, so I think this is a good way to remember her in that way.”

Logan and co-organizer Donna Williams have raised a total of $11,399 for breast cancer research since first putting on the Dundurn event that attracted 28 family and friends in 2009. Logan said each year since the event has gotten bigger and better with Helen’s Run 2013 managing to attract 58 adult participants and 17 kids who raised more than $4,800 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

“Our goal is to raise $5,500 this year and have 100 walkers and runners,” she said. “Our family usually all shows up and our friends and now (there’s) more people, so that’s remembering her in a way that she liked to see.

“Then with the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation we just try to do pink. We’ll have lots of pink things there and all the money is going towards the Foundation.”