New Year’s resolution pays off in good karma!

Last summer I went out for lunch with an old friend and we were served water that looked and tasted

terrible. When I asked the owner why the bad water, when we have the best non-chemical water around

from our beloved local spring, he told me they weren't allowed to serve spring water due to provincial

regulations. I ended up posting this experience on our local newsletter and the Low Down newspaper

decided to do a couple of stories on my experience. While this raised the profile of drinking water issues in

our small community, it didn't directly do anything to solve any problems. It sounded a bit like complaining.

So in early January I advertised to provide free drinking water during the winter when ice build up around

our local spring made it difficult for disabled or senior people to collect water. I was contacted by an

administrator from a local subsidized senior’s residence called Sully Gardens, and asked if I could help them

meet their drinking water needs while they were experiencing water quality problems with their well. 

Some seniors were concerned that the staining in their toilet meant their water was dangerous. I responded 

that this was due to a high iron content that stained the water and gave it a bad taste and smell. I found

my worthy cause when I learned that their tap water also had a high salt content which posed potential 

health impacts to seniors with high blood pressure.

One lovely senior from the residence named Violette, volunteered to be my coordinator. She informed me 

that the water problem was due to their filter system that had malfunctioned.  She explained that seniors at 

the residence were on fixed incomes and could not afford to buy bottled water. 

In January I began collecting about 60 liters of spring water every week and made it available to 25 seniors 

at a central location at the residence. For seniors who were sick, I brought water directly to their 

apartments.I also offered rides to the grocery store and pharmacy while filling the water containers. Some 

seniors tried to offer me money but I refused, I was looking to “wow” my community.

An alternative was for seniors to collect water at the local spring, but the thought of a senior getting injured

on the ice while filling and hauling heavy water containers was unacceptable to me. Seniors and their families 

were worried their tap water wasn’t safe to drink, I didn't say anything that might add to their worries, I

only offered safe alternatives. I learned that many seniors felt ignored in the community and that the public

and politicians were aware of how serious this issue had become since their water filter system had

malfunctioned about a year earlier. It was clear that someone was needed to raise the profile of the problem

in order to find a lasting solution.  I must admit that Violette did an amazing job of communicating with 

seniors and organizing my schedule so water was delivered when needed.  As coordinator, she was a driver 

of customer satisfaction by helping seniors to articulate their needs and putting their fears to rest.

I also worked with a reporter at our local newspaper to make sure that seniors were comfortable 

communicating with the media. Newspaper articles raised the profile by informing the public of the nature 

and seriousness of the residence water problems.  

Empowerment sometimes includes bending or breaking rules so that positive change can be realized. 

Drinking water needs at the residence were met by using our fantastic spring water which technically broke 

provincial regulations (oops!). It was clear toeveryone that these regulations were illogical, short-sighted and 

unenforceable. Seniors were using spring water to drink like most Wakefield residents routinely do. This was

reasonable because the spring water was tested regularly by the municipality and Sully Gardens was a non 

profit institution. Moreover, seniors washed the water containers to avoid any potential contamination. 

The goal was to help seniors live independently as possible without worrying about their drinking water.

Violette informed me that the plastic water containers were leaking on the floor and some people were 

having a hard time turning the valve on and off. I became concerned that a senior could slip and fall and 

began looking a safer alternative. I went further by asking my friend Jay at a local company “Life Without 

Plastic”, if they could donate a stainless steel cistern to the seniors at Sully Gardens. This gift “wowed” us all 

when Jay and Chantalle told me that using plastic to store water could contaminate the water with 

polyethylene terephthalates (PETs).  I thought to myself, there's no PETs allowed at this facility!

Together we found creative ways to raise the profile and solve their water problems. For example, one

senior made an anonymous comment to the Low Down newspaper that Sully Gardens may have trouble

attracting new tenants if their families were worried about on-going water quality problems. Perhaps as a

result, I recently heard that our Council has made a commitment to work with a local plumber to fix or

replace the water filtration system at no extra cost to residents.

The caretaker has also been empowered to supply the residence with spring water until the water filtration

system is fixed. She knows that this is a way to continue providing customer delight to the senior citizens in

her building.

In conclusion, my new year’s resolution to volunteer for a good cause was a huge success. This has been a

“win-win-win” situation for bringing out the best in me and other volunteers looking to make a positive

difference in their community. The generosity of the local company “Life Without Plastic”, has provided a

safe alternative to using plastic jugs and has created loyalty for them in the community.

I created goodwill with seniors by providing them with free spring water during the winter when it was

difficult to collect water due to ice conditions around the spring.

The profile of the Sully Gardens water problems has been raised, and we’re showing that Wakefield cares

for our seniors and we appreciate volunteers who stick their neck out to find creative solutions to our water

quality problems.

I can’t say enough about my friend Violette who has inspired me to volunteer more in the future. Like me,

she has enjoyed helping her fellow seniors at the residence find simple and inexpensive ways to ensure

access to good tasting and safe drinking water.  I have tried to reduce stress with local seniors by finding

safe alternatives for meeting their drinking water needs into the future.  The goodwill and trust I have gained

in my community demonstrates some of the qualities I plan to build on as I plan to become a property

manager in Mt. Tremblant with JoeAnne the new love in my life. If my Mom was still alive, she'd be proud!

(This essay was an edited version of an Algonquin College assignment on "wowing" your customer)

Introducing "She Build"

SHE Build - is a new company that builds a Sustainable Home Environment for the 21rst Century.

The sustainable building techniques that my old friend Bradley Robinson has been innovating since the early 1990s began with adobe (rammed earth) building, then evolved into a unique straw bale system and then graduated to a unique version of the now popular passive house.

Although it requires a minimal amount of energy to heat, unlike a passive house or conventional house, it’s built without a wood frame or standard concrete foundation which is considered obsolete by most experts. It's important to remember that cement is expensive and represent around 15% of greenhouse gases worldwide.

The large cost savings gained from this simple yet sophisticated building technique are integrated into a concrete building platform slab with a crawl space underneath that contains what Brad calls a battery or bio-reactor that purifies water into a useable waste stream of methane, along with a heat storage system that uses solar radiation to collect and circulate heat. You gotta see it to believe it!

An important theme to Brad's sustainable homes is to target benign waste streams into the design of the building systems. By what he calls  “fracking the kitchen sink”, the closed loop process results in a nutrient rich stream of water which is used in his attached greenhouse to grow food.  

Brad's domed homes are built with a minimal amount of building material but contains as much or more performance and strength as conventional homes, as the modular walls are fully integrated with the entire house structure to create a clean building structure that is easy and quick to build. 

Working with four conventional building materials – cement, polystyrene (for the below gradient sub floor), steel and tar, the home construction is comparable to an engineered straw bale (or rammed earth) stress skin system. The walls and roof built from the surprisingly strong and well insulated and environmentally friendly materials, are economically, environmentally and socially responsible. For example, the recovered heat, water, gas and nutrients are not released into the environment and therefore do not cause downstream impacts into the air or water. 

The beauty of the building technique is its use of equal sized modular panels that easily connect together with minimal labor, materials or time. Bradley made his current 1,300 square feet, one story domed home by himself over one summer just outside of Wakefield by the old Carmen Trails youth hostel.  

The materials used are relatively inexpensive, and construction requires no heavy machinery. Moreover, the home can incorporate recycled materials like recycled steel, plastic and reused polystyrene from the nearby StyroRail facility. For example, Bradley is looking into ways to reuse the demolition of old buildings and various waste streams to use in the core of the wall structures instead of polystyrene.

The cost to build this unique version of a passive house is competitive with current passive or conventional homes. The fact that it recycles water, food wastes and building materials and is resilient against extreme weather and risk of fire, means that it is a sustainable home for solving some of today’s and tomorrow's environmental challenges.

Look for more information on the home design, new projects and planned workshops at our website She.ca

P.S. It's been an interesting ride, but I'm no longer part of the SHE Build dream. In the end I couldn't commit myself to the cause because it was too much of a financial risk. This of course reflects the snail's pace of constructive change to building codes, banking regulations, and generally the way we over build our environment. Maybe the whole thing was a pipe dream but I'm not the only one who smokes....