The school year has not been smooth sailing for the custodial and administrative staff at Frank Maddock High School as there have been a number of incidents of vandalism.
Much of it appears to be linked to a social media challenge issued in September, called Devious Licks.
The challenge has been taken on by students across North America and has seen many arrests.
The vandalism has hit several schools in the Wild Rose School Division since the beginning of the year. “It was basic vandalism that was irritating, but it seemed manageable,” says WRSD Superintendent Brad Volkman.
Drayton Valley & District Community Learning Association
Learn. Feel Good. Repeat. OUR VISION: Our community actively empowers adults to be successful through
All Saints Anglican Church
Drayton Valley, All Saints Anglican Church participates in the Anglican Liturgy, which comforts and sustains us. Many have said that in such a busy and changing world it is important to come to a place that feels like home.
He says the challenge encouraged students to share their participation on social media.
The vandalism in the other schools has died down, but FMHS is still dealing with the issue. However, Volkman says it’s taken a different turn. “It went into a strange direction of trying to be as gross as you can,” he says.
Volkman says vandalism isn’t as much of a concern anymore. Rather, there are students who are defecating and urinating in places other than toilets and urinals. Some of the bodily fluids are then smeared all over the walls in the bathroom.
“The majority of the students who want to safely use the washroom are starting to feel nervous. They don’t know what they’re going to be walking into,” he says.
The school still isn’t sure who is causing the problem. Volkman says the school has also seen an increase of kids in the halls when they shouldn’t be, whether they are skipping class or just wandering around when on their spares, which makes it difficult to determine who’s responsible.
In an effort to prevent this, they have introduced a hall pass. Students can use an electronic hall pass, where they quickly scan a QR code and fill out a form which will get emailed to them. If they are uncomfortable using the QR code, there are physical hall passes they can take with them.
“The majority of the students who want to safely use the washroom are starting to feel nervous. They don’t know what they’re going to be walking into,”
After principal Dr. Lara Jollymore announced the implementation of the new hall pass system the school and the division received backlash from students and parents.
The situation got so heated that someone started a petition on www.Change.org to have Jollymore fired. There were several hundred digital signatures on the petition, along with some comments that seemed to focus on Jollymore in a more personal manner.
Volkman says he’s been working closely with Jollymore in regards to the hall pass and increased supervision. He says he’s very supportive of her actions, as is the Parent Council.
“Instituting a hall pass is actually not new to schools in Alberta. There are many schools who are currently using them,” says Volkman.
Volkman says he believes that part of the issue was that they are using QR codes. He wants parents to understand that the school is not collecting any information on students. They are only having students partake in a digital hall pass.
“I think that some people think we’re tracking students to some degree, but that’s not the case. [The electronic pass] is the exact same as a paper hall pass, except it’s on the student’s phone,” he says.
He says all that the code does is record when the student leaves class and when they get back to class. “We’re trying to keep our bathrooms and hallways safe during a time when things seem to be a little bit off,” he says.
One of the Crown-given rights of Canadians is the right to complain ad nauseam about anything that mildly irritates them. All Canadians exercise this right at some point or another to varying degrees.
Today, I wish to express my… dissatisfaction with a number of complainers. That does indeed make me a complainer, but as we’ve already covered, this is my Crown-given right.
The motto of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Maintiens le Droit, or in English, Uphold the Right.
While the words themselves may have differing meanings for officers, for many it’s a summary of their core values: take responsibility, show respect, serve with excellence, demonstrate compassion, and act with integrity. The motto can serve as a reminder of why they joined the RCMP.
Though the RCMP mandate is about dealing with crime, their motto could be interpreted as giving guidance for how they do their job. While their main task involves fighting crime, it’s rarely as black and white as people believe.
Anyone who has read the RCMP Report can see that a large portion of the calls they get aren’t about busting criminals. In a lot of cases, the RCMP play the role of referee, mentor, therapist, chauffeur, confidant, supervisor, financial advisor, and many, many others.
I’m going to preempt this next part with a disclaimer — while most RCMP officers exemplify the mandate and motto, there are some who do not, which is no different from any other industry, group, or organization out there.
Many people have two interchangeable perceptions of the RCMP.
The first perception stems from a need. We have been robbed; we need the police to come help us.
The second is activated when being caught. I broke the law, and those jerks are going to punish me for it.
It seems strange to me that some people can be angry with the RCMP for “always failing” to do their job and then be equally angry at them for succeeding at their job.
“People are driving unsafely! Where are the cops when you need them?”
“Wait, what? I just got pulled over for speeding? That other guy was going way faster; this jerk just thinks he’s important and wants to push someone around.”
I have seen people complain about cops wasting their time parked in high-traffic areas often frequented by dangerous drivers. Those same people are up in arms when there isn’t an officer present to crack down on the bad drivers.
On the odd occasion that someone happens to notice an officer has done their job, there is little praise. Instead, the most common response is something along the lines of, “Does he want a cookie every time he does his job?”
I am of the opinion that some of the people who are screaming the loudest about the cops are the ones who have had negative interactions with them. That could look like being disrespectful or aggressive to an officer. Or it could look like breaking the law and getting caught.
In any case, the double standard of many of the complaints is both mind-boggling and somewhat entertaining. The concept of “do your job unless it involves me” speaks to a high level of entitlement. And for the most part, those who are spewing vitriol about the work the RCMP do are saying more about their own character than anything else.
The Breton Cougars have made their community proud after winning the Alberta Bowl Provincial Championship for 6 A Side Team Football.
The Cougars faced the Hanna Hawks at the Jasper Place Bowl on November 28, where they came out on top with a score of 36-16.
Coach Corey Colwell says they’ve been close to getting the championship for several years, but never attained the achievement until this year.
“To finally get through was fantastic,” says Colwell. “It was a lot of fun.”
Colwell knew the Cougars had a good chance this year when he saw that the roster had eight grade 12 students on it.
“I told the boys way back in May when we started on May 1 for our spring camp that we were trying to get into that final provincial game,” says Colwell. “That was our goal.”
The players took that goal to heart.
“The boys, to their credit, showed up for every practice. They put in the work,” says Colwell. “They got better and better.”
He says the defence did the film study, watching game plays and preparing themselves for what their opponents would bring to the game. Colwell says the offence comes down to who can block the best, and his players stepped in to do it.
Putting in the work for this season involved more grit than it did in previous seasons. With the remodel underway at Breton High School, the students have been attending classes in Warburg. After school, they would head down to the Breton football field for their practice, where there was no power, running water, or washrooms.
“It’s been inconvenient and difficult for us all year,” says Colwell.
But even to make their practices work, they worked as a team. Players took turns bringing home water bottles and filling them up for the next practice. Colwell always made sure there was a clean outhouse and also brought in a generator to use for lights on the field and in the change room.
“Nothing was convenient or easy this year,” he says.
Colwell says what makes the win even sweeter is that Breton High School is the smallest school in the league. They had 74 students to draw from, where Hanna had 240 students.
“Every time we play, we’re punching above our weight class,” says Colwell.
The team had staff and students from the school cheering them on.
“This team has worked so hard to get here. Before school practices, even in the freezing cold! With full course loads, these students spend any spare second watching football tapes, practicing and working hard to be the best,” said principal Shannon Gallant in a statement.
Now that they’ve won the cup, the team gets to keep it for the year. Colwell says they will bring it back to the Alberta Bowl next year, where he hopes they will win it again.
Countdown to Christmas
That ringing noise you hear isn’t sleigh bells, it’s cash registers across the land gearing up for the busiest couple of weeks of the year.
Yes, it’s December, and December means Christmas shopping. And there is no shortage of options to separate you from your hard earned cash at this time of year. Santa’s helpers throughout corporate North America have been working tirelessly since December 26 last year to develop a range of consumer goods that everybody who is anybody simply must have for Christmas 2025. You can ignore them and their wall-to-wall advertising all you like, but ultimately it will make no difference. They will simply do an end run around your wall of indifference and get at you through your kids. Or your wife. Or both.
As always, there will be those among us who pine for the days when Christmas was not about a new video game, the latest Barbie collectible or whatever fresh atrocity the Disney Corporation is about to unleash upon the world. Those are the people for whom Christmas is about rosy faced children singing carols by an open fire as large, soft and fluffy flakes of snow fall from the darkened sky. It’s a Victorian Christmas, just like you see on television.
There’s no question that that idea of Christmas is an attractive one. But it’s somewhat undermined by the fact that most Victorian children had very little to sing about and the only thing that made their cheeks so rosy were the early symptoms of cholera, diphtheria or rickets.
So much for nostalgia. There will also be those who believe Christmas should still be regarded first and foremost as a religious festival. They may well be right, but try telling that to a rapacious 10-year-old who simply has to have the latest K-Pop Demon Hunters collectable, because all of their friends already have some and if you don’t get it for them it will be The Worst Thing That Ever Happened in the Entire History of the World and you will have failed as a parent.
So let’s face it. You’re kind of screwed. And not in that fun way I read about on the Internet.
The good news is that the big day itself is still three weeks away, so there’s no need to panic just yet. And the big online retailers will be shipping right up until Christmas Eve.
It would be foolish, however, to wait too much longer before you venture out to get your shopping done. You may think there’s still plenty of time, but time has a way of slipping by. If you find yourself touring the streets of Drayton Valley desperately looking for a gas station that’s still open at 11 p.m. on December 24 in the hope that the mysterious object your wife has been dropping hints about for the last six months is either a litre of oil, an air freshener shaped like a pine tree or one of those snow brushes with a retractable handle, don’t blame me.
Besides, a lot of retailers, particularly smaller operations, rely on the money they take in during this month to see them through the other 334 days of the year. Times are tough out there, and we have an economy to support. So it’s almost your patriotic duty to get out and spend, spend, spend.
Women’s rehab centre moving forward
Several Drayton Valley residents are looking to open a rehabilitation centre for women in the community.
While Opportunity Home opened in 2023, the rehabilitation centre only takes in men. All Are Daughters will be able to complement Opportunity Home by offering a centre for women.
At their first public event, All Are Daughters’ president Carrie Popadynetz spoke to a crowd packed into Nodding Donkey Brewing. Popadynetz shared details of her own struggles with addiction and her determination to help others on their own journeys to recovery.
“My name is Carrie Popadynetz, and what you see here tonight is my dream coming to life,” she says.
Popadynetz says she struggled with recovery for more than a decade. She had children, was married and divorced, and moved around to try to prevent a relapse.
One of her biggest obstacles was the fear of losing her children. Popadynetz says she was afraid to get herself into a facility because she could lose custody.
In 2013, Popadynetz was finally able to succeed with her recovery efforts.
“If I can do it, anyone can do it,” she says.
Popadynetz says one of her friends lost a sister to an overdose in 2023 because of the wait times in Alberta for a place in a rehabilitation centre. She says for every eight beds that are available for men in recovery, there is only one for women in Alberta.
“In that grief, I felt my higher power calling me — calling us — into action,” says Popadynetz. “I am done watching women die from this disease. I am done watching women forced to choose between getting help and being mothers. I am done watching pregnant mothers face the terror that the moment they deliver the baby’s being taken from their arms.
“I faced the barriers for years, and now I’m committed to tearing those barriers down.”
All Are Daughters was established in the spring of 2025. Local business owner Pat Vos has donated the old Intercon building to the cause, and the renovations are currently underway. Now, they are working to open their doors as soon as possible.
Popadynetz says she wants this facility to offer a more holistic experience for women struggling with addiction abuse disorder. All Are Daughters will be a centre that allows women and children to stay, allowing mothers to heal themselves while caring for their children. They will offer many services that will give women important skills to take out into the world once they have completed the program.
Along with the traditional services offered at a recovery facility, All Are Daughters will also help women work or take university courses to help them succeed.
“I’ve got a vision, and I’m going to build it,” says Popadynetz.
One local mother, Trina Beckett, told the story of her teenage daughter’s addiction, her recovery process, and her completion of the program in 2021. Beckett spoke about the importance of family involvement and support during her daughter’s recovery, even after her daughter had completed the program.
The road wasn’t an easy one, requiring one parent to live in Calgary and open a recovery home for adolescents to stay at while they went through the program. As a result, her family was paying double the household bills, and her husband and children spent hours on the road visiting Beckett and her daughter every couple of weeks.
“Once Bre completed the program at [Adolescent Recovery Centre] I had a dream. A dream born from watching our daughter’s journey and imagining a place where women could heal together, support one another, and rebuild their lives with dignity and love,” says Beckett.
Beckett says her daughter was excited that Beckett was part of All Are Daughters.
After Bre died in an accident last summer, Beckett says she is working toward this dream for herself and her daughter.
“Bre and I dreamt it while she was here,” says Beckett. “And I wanted to continue even more after her passing.”
Danna Cropley, the executive director of Opportunity Home, is a member of the board for All Are Daughters.
“Recovery is not about willpower,” says Cropley. “It’s about having the right support, at the right time, in an environment where healing is actually possible. How we as a community understand addiction shapes whether people will reach out at all.”
Cropley says that rural areas face the highest barriers to accessing mental health and substance abuse services. All Are Daughters will help to fill that gap, with ten beds open to women.
“These are not personal failures; these are structural realities,” says Cropley.
All Are Daughters is working with the Province to get the same funding as Opportunity Home gets. Cropley says they will receive about $83 per client per day, but that will only cover a small portion of the costs.
Popadynetz says there are several ways the community can support All Are Daughters. She says they have been discussing different ways to get funding, such as room sponsorships and advertising packages. They’re also looking for volunteers.
Those looking to donate or find more information on the project can reach out to All Are Daughters at 780-515-1205 or by email at allaredaughters@gmail.com.
Drake’s gets a bigger bus
The Drake’s Handi-Bus now has a second vehicle to help transport more people in the community.
Sam Hill, one of the drivers for Drake’s Handi-Bus, says the original bus only had room for seven passengers and one wheelchair. The new bus holds 24 passengers or 17 passengers and two wheelchairs.
Hill says that, for the most part, there was enough room for users in the original bus. The only time it was an issue was if there was a larger group of people. However, with only one bus, the organization was limited in how many trips it could make.
For example, if there were people who had appointments in Edmonton, the handi-bus couldn’t be offering services in Drayton Valley.
“What was happening, sometimes, I could hire out one of the little school buses or something, but they’re very expensive,” says Hill.
Given that Drake’s runs on a lean budget, renting other buses wasn’t exactly feasible for them.
Hill says without the support from the Town and local businesses, they wouldn’t be able to offer what they do.
“We’ve survived, basically,” says Hill.
They do charge for the service to help cover the costs of staff and vehicle maintenance. While they do make a little more money for trips to the city, for the most part, they aren’t making much in revenue. On most trips, they break even at best.
Hill says she advocated to the Town for a second vehicle with the idea that getting a bigger one would be better.
“Then you could accommodate the groups,” she says.
Hill says they shopped around and found a used bus that would accommodate their needs. With the second bus, they can offer more services. This includes offering the service to able-bodied individuals.
“We have opened it up,” says Hill. “The schools, if they have a small team or something that needs to travel, we can book that. Or a small class that needs to go to the pool, we can do that.”
She says the service is available for others provided a bus is available for use.
Drayton Valley & District Community Learning Association
Learn. Feel Good. Repeat.
- OUR VISION: Our community actively empowers adults to be successful through lifelong learning.
- OUR MISSION: To provide opportunities to adult learners in the Drayton Valley and Brazeau County area by encouraging, developing and enhancing literacy skills.
At this point, the school is handling the situation on their own. They have had conversations with the RCMP, but the police are not involved in an investigation.
Volkman says they want to find the students who are causing this situation so the vandalism can stop, but also so the students can get the mental help they need.
He says it has been predicted that the stress of Covid would lead to mental illness problems for many people. In an effort to stay ahead of the situation, WRSD hired additional wellness workers to help, basically doubling the amount they normally have in place.
“We knew the number of issues around mental health and wellness were going to be quite a bit higher,” he says.
One of the Crown-given rights of Canadians is the right to complain ad nauseam about anything that mildly irritates them. All Canadians exercise this right at some point or another to varying degrees.
Today, I wish to express my… dissatisfaction with a number of complainers. That does indeed make me a complainer, but as we’ve already covered, this is my Crown-given right.
The motto of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Maintiens le Droit, or in English, Uphold the Right.
While the words themselves may have differing meanings for officers, for many it’s a summary of their core values: take responsibility, show respect, serve with excellence, demonstrate compassion, and act with integrity. The motto can serve as a reminder of why they joined the RCMP.
Though the RCMP mandate is about dealing with crime, their motto could be interpreted as giving guidance for how they do their job. While their main task involves fighting crime, it’s rarely as black and white as people believe.
Anyone who has read the RCMP Report can see that a large portion of the calls they get aren’t about busting criminals. In a lot of cases, the RCMP play the role of referee, mentor, therapist, chauffeur, confidant, supervisor, financial advisor, and many, many others.
I’m going to preempt this next part with a disclaimer — while most RCMP officers exemplify the mandate and motto, there are some who do not, which is no different from any other industry, group, or organization out there.
Many people have two interchangeable perceptions of the RCMP.
The first perception stems from a need. We have been robbed; we need the police to come help us.
The second is activated when being caught. I broke the law, and those jerks are going to punish me for it.
It seems strange to me that some people can be angry with the RCMP for “always failing” to do their job and then be equally angry at them for succeeding at their job.
“People are driving unsafely! Where are the cops when you need them?”
“Wait, what? I just got pulled over for speeding? That other guy was going way faster; this jerk just thinks he’s important and wants to push someone around.”
I have seen people complain about cops wasting their time parked in high-traffic areas often frequented by dangerous drivers. Those same people are up in arms when there isn’t an officer present to crack down on the bad drivers.
On the odd occasion that someone happens to notice an officer has done their job, there is little praise. Instead, the most common response is something along the lines of, “Does he want a cookie every time he does his job?”
I am of the opinion that some of the people who are screaming the loudest about the cops are the ones who have had negative interactions with them. That could look like being disrespectful or aggressive to an officer. Or it could look like breaking the law and getting caught.
In any case, the double standard of many of the complaints is both mind-boggling and somewhat entertaining. The concept of “do your job unless it involves me” speaks to a high level of entitlement. And for the most part, those who are spewing vitriol about the work the RCMP do are saying more about their own character than anything else.
The Breton Cougars have made their community proud after winning the Alberta Bowl Provincial Championship for 6 A Side Team Football.
The Cougars faced the Hanna Hawks at the Jasper Place Bowl on November 28, where they came out on top with a score of 36-16.
Coach Corey Colwell says they’ve been close to getting the championship for several years, but never attained the achievement until this year.
“To finally get through was fantastic,” says Colwell. “It was a lot of fun.”
Colwell knew the Cougars had a good chance this year when he saw that the roster had eight grade 12 students on it.
“I told the boys way back in May when we started on May 1 for our spring camp that we were trying to get into that final provincial game,” says Colwell. “That was our goal.”
The players took that goal to heart.
“The boys, to their credit, showed up for every practice. They put in the work,” says Colwell. “They got better and better.”
He says the defence did the film study, watching game plays and preparing themselves for what their opponents would bring to the game. Colwell says the offence comes down to who can block the best, and his players stepped in to do it.
Putting in the work for this season involved more grit than it did in previous seasons. With the remodel underway at Breton High School, the students have been attending classes in Warburg. After school, they would head down to the Breton football field for their practice, where there was no power, running water, or washrooms.
“It’s been inconvenient and difficult for us all year,” says Colwell.
But even to make their practices work, they worked as a team. Players took turns bringing home water bottles and filling them up for the next practice. Colwell always made sure there was a clean outhouse and also brought in a generator to use for lights on the field and in the change room.
“Nothing was convenient or easy this year,” he says.
Colwell says what makes the win even sweeter is that Breton High School is the smallest school in the league. They had 74 students to draw from, where Hanna had 240 students.
“Every time we play, we’re punching above our weight class,” says Colwell.
The team had staff and students from the school cheering them on.
“This team has worked so hard to get here. Before school practices, even in the freezing cold! With full course loads, these students spend any spare second watching football tapes, practicing and working hard to be the best,” said principal Shannon Gallant in a statement.
Now that they’ve won the cup, the team gets to keep it for the year. Colwell says they will bring it back to the Alberta Bowl next year, where he hopes they will win it again.
That ringing noise you hear isn’t sleigh bells, it’s cash registers across the land gearing up for the busiest couple of weeks of the year.
Yes, it’s December, and December means Christmas shopping. And there is no shortage of options to separate you from your hard earned cash at this time of year. Santa’s helpers throughout corporate North America have been working tirelessly since December 26 last year to develop a range of consumer goods that everybody who is anybody simply must have for Christmas 2025. You can ignore them and their wall-to-wall advertising all you like, but ultimately it will make no difference. They will simply do an end run around your wall of indifference and get at you through your kids. Or your wife. Or both.
As always, there will be those among us who pine for the days when Christmas was not about a new video game, the latest Barbie collectible or whatever fresh atrocity the Disney Corporation is about to unleash upon the world. Those are the people for whom Christmas is about rosy faced children singing carols by an open fire as large, soft and fluffy flakes of snow fall from the darkened sky. It’s a Victorian Christmas, just like you see on television.
There’s no question that that idea of Christmas is an attractive one. But it’s somewhat undermined by the fact that most Victorian children had very little to sing about and the only thing that made their cheeks so rosy were the early symptoms of cholera, diphtheria or rickets.
So much for nostalgia. There will also be those who believe Christmas should still be regarded first and foremost as a religious festival. They may well be right, but try telling that to a rapacious 10-year-old who simply has to have the latest K-Pop Demon Hunters collectable, because all of their friends already have some and if you don’t get it for them it will be The Worst Thing That Ever Happened in the Entire History of the World and you will have failed as a parent.
So let’s face it. You’re kind of screwed. And not in that fun way I read about on the Internet.
The good news is that the big day itself is still three weeks away, so there’s no need to panic just yet. And the big online retailers will be shipping right up until Christmas Eve.
It would be foolish, however, to wait too much longer before you venture out to get your shopping done. You may think there’s still plenty of time, but time has a way of slipping by. If you find yourself touring the streets of Drayton Valley desperately looking for a gas station that’s still open at 11 p.m. on December 24 in the hope that the mysterious object your wife has been dropping hints about for the last six months is either a litre of oil, an air freshener shaped like a pine tree or one of those snow brushes with a retractable handle, don’t blame me.
Besides, a lot of retailers, particularly smaller operations, rely on the money they take in during this month to see them through the other 334 days of the year. Times are tough out there, and we have an economy to support. So it’s almost your patriotic duty to get out and spend, spend, spend.
Several Drayton Valley residents are looking to open a rehabilitation centre for women in the community.
While Opportunity Home opened in 2023, the rehabilitation centre only takes in men. All Are Daughters will be able to complement Opportunity Home by offering a centre for women.
At their first public event, All Are Daughters’ president Carrie Popadynetz spoke to a crowd packed into Nodding Donkey Brewing. Popadynetz shared details of her own struggles with addiction and her determination to help others on their own journeys to recovery.
“My name is Carrie Popadynetz, and what you see here tonight is my dream coming to life,” she says.
Popadynetz says she struggled with recovery for more than a decade. She had children, was married and divorced, and moved around to try to prevent a relapse.
One of her biggest obstacles was the fear of losing her children. Popadynetz says she was afraid to get herself into a facility because she could lose custody.
In 2013, Popadynetz was finally able to succeed with her recovery efforts.
“If I can do it, anyone can do it,” she says.
Popadynetz says one of her friends lost a sister to an overdose in 2023 because of the wait times in Alberta for a place in a rehabilitation centre. She says for every eight beds that are available for men in recovery, there is only one for women in Alberta.
“In that grief, I felt my higher power calling me — calling us — into action,” says Popadynetz. “I am done watching women die from this disease. I am done watching women forced to choose between getting help and being mothers. I am done watching pregnant mothers face the terror that the moment they deliver the baby’s being taken from their arms.
“I faced the barriers for years, and now I’m committed to tearing those barriers down.”
All Are Daughters was established in the spring of 2025. Local business owner Pat Vos has donated the old Intercon building to the cause, and the renovations are currently underway. Now, they are working to open their doors as soon as possible.
Popadynetz says she wants this facility to offer a more holistic experience for women struggling with addiction abuse disorder. All Are Daughters will be a centre that allows women and children to stay, allowing mothers to heal themselves while caring for their children. They will offer many services that will give women important skills to take out into the world once they have completed the program.
Along with the traditional services offered at a recovery facility, All Are Daughters will also help women work or take university courses to help them succeed.
“I’ve got a vision, and I’m going to build it,” says Popadynetz.
One local mother, Trina Beckett, told the story of her teenage daughter’s addiction, her recovery process, and her completion of the program in 2021. Beckett spoke about the importance of family involvement and support during her daughter’s recovery, even after her daughter had completed the program.
The road wasn’t an easy one, requiring one parent to live in Calgary and open a recovery home for adolescents to stay at while they went through the program. As a result, her family was paying double the household bills, and her husband and children spent hours on the road visiting Beckett and her daughter every couple of weeks.
“Once Bre completed the program at [Adolescent Recovery Centre] I had a dream. A dream born from watching our daughter’s journey and imagining a place where women could heal together, support one another, and rebuild their lives with dignity and love,” says Beckett.
Beckett says her daughter was excited that Beckett was part of All Are Daughters.
After Bre died in an accident last summer, Beckett says she is working toward this dream for herself and her daughter.
“Bre and I dreamt it while she was here,” says Beckett. “And I wanted to continue even more after her passing.”
Danna Cropley, the executive director of Opportunity Home, is a member of the board for All Are Daughters.
“Recovery is not about willpower,” says Cropley. “It’s about having the right support, at the right time, in an environment where healing is actually possible. How we as a community understand addiction shapes whether people will reach out at all.”
Cropley says that rural areas face the highest barriers to accessing mental health and substance abuse services. All Are Daughters will help to fill that gap, with ten beds open to women.
“These are not personal failures; these are structural realities,” says Cropley.
All Are Daughters is working with the Province to get the same funding as Opportunity Home gets. Cropley says they will receive about $83 per client per day, but that will only cover a small portion of the costs.
Popadynetz says there are several ways the community can support All Are Daughters. She says they have been discussing different ways to get funding, such as room sponsorships and advertising packages. They’re also looking for volunteers.
Those looking to donate or find more information on the project can reach out to All Are Daughters at 780-515-1205 or by email at allaredaughters@gmail.com.
The Drake’s Handi-Bus now has a second vehicle to help transport more people in the community.
Sam Hill, one of the drivers for Drake’s Handi-Bus, says the original bus only had room for seven passengers and one wheelchair. The new bus holds 24 passengers or 17 passengers and two wheelchairs.
Hill says that, for the most part, there was enough room for users in the original bus. The only time it was an issue was if there was a larger group of people. However, with only one bus, the organization was limited in how many trips it could make.
For example, if there were people who had appointments in Edmonton, the handi-bus couldn’t be offering services in Drayton Valley.
“What was happening, sometimes, I could hire out one of the little school buses or something, but they’re very expensive,” says Hill.
Given that Drake’s runs on a lean budget, renting other buses wasn’t exactly feasible for them.
Hill says without the support from the Town and local businesses, they wouldn’t be able to offer what they do.
“We’ve survived, basically,” says Hill.
They do charge for the service to help cover the costs of staff and vehicle maintenance. While they do make a little more money for trips to the city, for the most part, they aren’t making much in revenue. On most trips, they break even at best.
Hill says she advocated to the Town for a second vehicle with the idea that getting a bigger one would be better.
“Then you could accommodate the groups,” she says.
Hill says they shopped around and found a used bus that would accommodate their needs. With the second bus, they can offer more services. This includes offering the service to able-bodied individuals.
“We have opened it up,” says Hill. “The schools, if they have a small team or something that needs to travel, we can book that. Or a small class that needs to go to the pool, we can do that.”
She says the service is available for others provided a bus is available for use.
Learn. Feel Good. Repeat.
- OUR VISION: Our community actively empowers adults to be successful through lifelong learning.
- OUR MISSION: To provide opportunities to adult learners in the Drayton Valley and Brazeau County area by encouraging, developing and enhancing literacy skills.
Along with the hall pass, there will be increased supervision in the school. He says it has been difficult to determine who the culprits are, and the hope is that taking these additional measures will help to reduce the problem or at least help them find the students who are responsible.
“Then we can at least get these wellness resources to these kids, because this is not normal behaviour,” says Volkman.
For those who have concerns regarding Jollymore’s decisions, Volkman says he encourages them to talk to the principal directly. He says that will solve the majority of the issues. Those that aren’t resolved can then be escalated to the division office.
Locals line up to call for vote on separation
Residents were lined up all the way out of the doors of the MacKenzie Conference Centre last week to sign the Stay Free Alberta petition, which aims to bring a referendum for Alberta separating from Canada.
Local resident brings relief efforts to the Philippines
The devastation caused by Typhoon Kalmaegi left shockwaves around the world, and one local resident knew she had to step up to help with relief efforts.
Gratitude can go too far
I am grateful that I don’t have to be grateful for something every single day.
Yes, you read that correctly. I don’t have to find something to be thankful for on a day when
Auxiliary supports several important services
Last year was a busy one for the Drayton Valley Healthcare Auxiliary.
Doreen Beckett, the president and manager of the Drayton Valley Healthcare Auxiliary Thrift Store, says they raise funds for the Drayton Valley Hospital, the Serenity House, and the Breton Extended Care facility.
