Ten cents isn’t a lot of money, but thanks to organizer Faye Morrison, some dedicated volunteers, and the community of Loon Lake, the dimes that you get when you return bottles and cans have added up over the last few years, and turned into funds that have helped the Loon Lake Volunteer Fire Department (LLVFD).
The “Ten Cents at a Time” campaign was started by Morrison after the Loon Lake fire hall was destroyed in the Elephant Hill wildfire of 2017. Since then, close to $30,000 has been raised, one return at a time.
“We knew we would have to build a new hall,” says Morrison, noting that raising funds to help with the rebuild cost was the impetus for the campaign. It began operating out of a seldom-used concession stand (“It was really just an empty shed”) between the site of the fire hall and the community hall, which was big enough at the time to allow volunteers to store and sort empty cans and bottles.
In 2018 the community voted to have the LLVFD taken over by the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD). Soon after, the Loon Lake Community Recreational and Agricultural Society, which owned the concession stand, decided to turn it into a small gift shop, which left the campaign needing a new home base.
“The TNRD gave us space near their transfer station at Loon Lake,” says Morrison. “[TNRD manager of fire protection services] Jason Tomlin acquired a shed for us and had it delivered and assembled. It’s an open-sided shed with a roof, and we store the bagged and sorted bottles there.”
The volunteers now have a well-established sorting system, along with equipment that includes wire laundry-bag holders for the bags and a sloped sorting table with an open end. Empties are collected and sorted until they have enough to count and bag; then they are usually taken to General Grant’s in Kamloops, with whom Morrison says they have a good rapport.
“We can fit 18 bags into a pickup truck, and we have written on a piece of paper how many we have, and of what, and they just give us the money even before we unload. We’ve been very thorough and very careful, so they trust us.”
Morrison runs the program and does a lot of the work of sorting and bagging. “As we wind down over fall and winter I can mostly do it by myself, but in summer with the holidaymakers there’s a lot more. I have firefighters who will drive empties to the market, and a lady who takes the odds and sods like juice boxes and milk cartons — things where it takes a long time to get a bag-full — to Ashcroft or to General Grant’s.
“I have other people I can call, and sometimes people come and ask if they can help. It’s a bit of a social event: we chitchat and catch up on gossip.”
The campaign recently received a huge boost from Loon Lake’s White Moose Resort and Marigold Resort, which donated their empties to Ten Cents at a Time. “We had to go to Kamloops three times in a week, and banked $3,000,” says Morrison.
Just over $26,000 of the money collected through the campaign was donated to the fund for rebuilding the fire hall, with the money reducing the amount that the TNRD had to borrow for the project. The remaining funds, and any money collected going forward, will be put aside for the use of the LLVFD, to be used at their discretion for any items that they don’t have funds in the budget for.
“It’s really based on community, and for the good of the community,” says Morrison. “The fire chief has said he’d like to see every property with a green address sign so emergency services can find them, and AED machines. We’re not dictating what they do with the money.
“And it’s the people here who have done this,” she adds, “the residents and the part-time property owners. They’re the ones who have supported us over the years, and now we’re lucky that the two resorts have given us some. Every little bit helps, ten cents at a time.”
