Opportunity to speak up for South Dundas

The Provincial Government is providing small, rural and northern municipalities with stable, annual funding to build and repair critical infrastructure and help to create jobs across the province.

Premier Kathleen Wynne and Jeff Leal, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, were in St. Thomas to announce that the new Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund will provide $100 million per year in funding for critical road, bridge, water and wastewater projects. 

Half of the funding for the initiative will be allocated annually using a fair and transparent formula, which recognizes that municipalities have different infrastructure and fiscal needs. The remaining $50 million will flow through an application-based process, allowing municipalities to continue partnering with the province to invest in critical infrastructure projects that will create jobs and support growth. 

The Premier also announced that Ontario municipalities can now propose infrastructure projects to be considered for support through the Small Communities Fund. Through this fund, Ontario and the federal government will each provide $272 million to support projects in municipalities with populations less than 100,000.

The province is now accepting expressions of interest for the application-based component of the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund and the Small Communities Fund, with grants expected to be awarded in early 2015.

To be eligible for the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund, municipalities must have a population of less than 100,000 as of the 2011 census or be located in northern or rural Ontario.

To ease the administrative burden for small municipalities, the province worked with the federal government to closely align the Small Communities Fund with the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund.

Ontario plans to invest more than $130 billion in public infrastructure over the next 10 years. This will support more than 110,000 jobs on average each year in construction and related industries.

“Our government is fulfilling a commitment to provide a permanent infrastructure program that will continue to build up small, rural and northern communities. We listened to our municipal partners, who know what’s best for their communities. This is why providing predictable, sustainable, annual funding is a key component of this new fund,” said Jeff Leal, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

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At last count, Peggy Williams has finished and sent 6,458 bears to children (and some adults) who truly need them. 

Now 88 years old, Williams says, “There have been many children who have been comforted by these little bears. I have even heard that CHEO sent some of them to a home for adults suffering from Alzheimer’s disease: they loved them. About four years ago, I sent 100 bears to babies in an orphanage in Chernobyl. Helping others, well, it just makes you feel good.”

Each of Williams’ small bears is lovingly made by hand in bright colours, soft and huggable. Since 2001 she has been sending bundles of them off to CHEO in Ottawa.

“CHEO sometimes calls them ‘pocket pals’, although I tend to think of them all as bears,” Peggy laughs. 

“They can go with a small patient into X-Ray units, with them for CT Scans. They are easily sterilized, so there really is nowhere in the hospital they can’t go. One of these bears is a friend for a child (even a child in his or her teens) to hold.”

Assisted by her daughter Dorothy Williams (“Peggy is the knitter. I cannot knit. I handle the stuffing and the bears’ faces,” Dorothy laughs), Peggy can make as many as five bears a day.

“But the creation of a personality for each bear takes a little longer.”

Dorothy says that her mother has always been a volunteer. 

Originally the family operated Ottawa Valley Ceramics in Kars. Despite the demands of  helping to run the business, Peggy continued to find ways to help her community. 

She personally knitted 600 outfits for ‘preemies’ prior to 2001. Along with creating her bears, last year she also began crocheting afghans for CHEO. “They help to warm people in their beds, or when they are in wheelchairs. I make sure the afghans are bright and cheerful.”

When they lived in Manotick, CJOH learned about the Williams ladies’ efforts. Max Keeping ran a story about their work at CHEO on the television news. 

In 2010, Peggy moved to Iroquois.

“I love it here. I wanted a place where I could see things going on. From my living room I can watch the river, the roads, the planes landing and I can still keep right on making my bears.”

In all the years that Peggy and Dorothy Williams have been making bears, only twice have they received any actual financial help to defray the costs of materials. They accept and collect yarn and material from friends and neighbours. They are very grateful when people make donations of knitting and crocheting material to them. 

In the meantime, the Williams’ bears are off on a new journey. 

Pictured above, in the centre, is Diane Orlicky, who is taking 110 of the bears to the 2012 South Dundas Christmas Exchange. Left is Peggy Williams, right, her daughter, Dorothy.

“I plan to keep on working on this as long as I can,” Dorothy Williams said.  

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