Inspired by a family out west that built a rainbow igloo in their backyard last winter, I thought this would be a great idea for the 2014 Apsley Winter Carnival & Dogsled Race. As Chair of Apsley School Council I brought the idea forward at our January meeting to make this a school project. In 3 and a half weeks we collected 1004 cartons. We used more than 2000L of water and nearly a litre of food colouring. Half a dump truck load of snow was used to make an igloo mould and over 100 volunteer hours went into this project.
The Rainbow Igloo was built over the Family Day Weekend February 14-17, 2014. It is 10ft wide at the base and over 5ft 6″ high in the center. The Apsley Winter Carnival was the weekend of February 21-23, 2014 and we lit up the igloo on Saturday February 22, 2014 at 6pm. The dream became a reality!
This amazing project then led to a great fundraising event. The ‘gloo crew’ ladies Amanda, Meghan and myself pledged to spend ‘A Night in the Gloo’ if we could raise $1004 and/or pounds of food (one for every carton we collected) for the North Kawartha Food Bank. On Wednesday March 5, 2014 less than 2 weeks after we started our fundraising campaign we reached and surpassed our goal! The Rainbow Igloo slumber party happened on Friday March 7, 2014. It was a lot of fun and we were quite comfortable and cozy inside the gloo. As of March 23, 2014 we ended up raising $1110 and 232lbs of food for our food bank.
From a secret wish of mine, to a spur of the moment school project decision, then growing into a community-wide endeavour, to becoming one of the most popular attractions at the carnival, and turning into a very unique and successful fundraising event, I am overwhelmed and humbled by the positive impact this beautiful ice creation has had. Please share this as much as you like. I’d love nothing more than to see rainbow igloos popping up all over the place!
North Kawartha Public Library Recognized for Service Excellence
Approximately seven years ago our library was faced with some legislative changes that required us to develop a number of new policies and procedures. As a board member since 2003, I created a sub-committee that began this process in 2006. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of staff, our library developed over 100 policies and procedures aimed at improving the quality and accountability of our library services to our community. With the stimulus funding provided by the federal and provincial governments a few years ago and a forward-thinking municipal council, both branches of the North Kawartha Public Library (NKPL) benefited and received funds to build new facilities to serve our community. These new buildings were constructed to meet the latest standards for accessibility and the growing demands for technology based services.
With all these achievements, the NKPL began investigating the requirements for provincial accreditation. The Federation of Ontario Public Libraries (FOPL) administers the Ontario Public Libraries Guidelines (OPLG) Program with the aim of assisting public libraries in developing and maintaining consistently strong public library service. The OPLG Program provides a voluntary accreditation process to recognize those libraries that meet a province-wide set of service expectations through their policies, resources, facilities and services.
Last year the Library Board and staff felt that our Library was ready to submit itself to the accreditation process. After providing all of the required information and documents and undergoing a peer review and audit, our application for accreditation was approved by the OPLG Monitoring and Accreditation Council last November. On January 31, 2013 I along with Technical Services Coordinator Susan Suhr and Librarian Debbie Hall attended the Ontario Library Association’s annual Super Conference in Toronto, where we accepted our Accreditation certificate.
Having served on the North Kawartha Library Board for the past decade I’ve come to believe that public library service is essential to the economic health and social well-being of any community, and with this latest achievement by the North Kawartha Public Library, it is clear that our community is thriving. I want to thank all our staff and board members (both current and past) for their commitment to providing high quality public library service to North Kawartha.