As I write this message to you late on Friday afternoon, my thoughts turn to the last few days and to a couple of things in particular – first, how cold it has been this past week, and second how much snow has fallen around our homes and Bethany’s buildings, as well as on the roads in between.
In the almost four decades I have lived in Alberta, I can think of only three other times when Calgary had such a large snowfall. One was in the early 1980s when there was a fierce snow fall in the north end of Calgary (and, as my colleagues of the time delighted in telling everyone, no snow in south Calgary); the St. Patrick’s Day snow storm in the late 1990s; and the September 2014 snow storm when so many of Calgary’s trees were damaged, some irreparably.
I believe that one of the measures of a person’s character is shown by how they react to an emergency, such as the large snow fall we had this past week. I am very proud to report that so many of the People of Bethany that I spoke to last week demonstrated the wonderful quality of resilience in making sure they were at work to meet the requirements of their roles. For some, that meant leaving earlier from home to get to work on time; while for others, it meant taking public transit in favour of driving themselves, or having someone else give them a lift. As well, some of our scheduled work had to be re-arranged to make sure that services to our residents, tenants and other clients were not impacted by the cold and snow.
Thank you to all of you who demonstrated resilience, in your own way, to continue fulfilling Bethany’s mission of ‘Creating Caring Communities’.
As always, I welcome ideas, suggestions and any questions that you may have. Please feel free to send them to me at alasdair.smith@bethanyseniors.com.
Take care,
– Alasdair
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