April 2020

HIGHLIGHTS

SUPPORTING FIRST NATIONS DURING COVID-19

LEARNING FROM HOME BACKPACK CAMPAIGN

As part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to support to northern remote communities, we have launched our ” Learning from Home ” campaign which will provide backpacks full of school supplies to three northern Saskatchewan communities. For $40 a backpack, plus transportation, you can help a student living in one of these communities learn from home and have the necessary supplies to do so!

 


COVID-19 EMERGENCY FUND

True North Aid would like to thank all of you who have contributed to our Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund . We have had several requests from remote communities and are working to fulfill these requests. Through your support, we plan to send shipments with essential supplies to communities like White Dog, Eabametoong, Canoe Lake Cree, Clearwater River Dene First Nations and more. Please consider a donation towards our fund.


FRIENDS OF THE NORTH MISIWAY PREPARE HANDMADE MASKS

Doris Thomas, founder and chair of our FRIENDS OF THE NORTH MISIWAY PROJECT has sown face masks to support communities in the James Bay Region and the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority that serves them. They will be given to patients travelling to Kingston on charter flights for urgent medical appointments and to those travelling back home.   


FURNITURE SHIPMENT #2 ARRIVES IN KENORA

 A second shipment of furniture filling three large rail containers arrived in Kenora in early March to support Treaty #3 in northwestern Ontario. A huge THANK YOU to the many groups and people who made this shipment possible including Sheraton Parkway Hotel in Richmond Hill, CP Rail, and Ontario Provincial Police (Kenora Detachment). 


FACE MASKS FOR FORT HOPE

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to Erin Horocholyn from Kitchener, Ontario who sewed 65 hand-made masks to keep seniors and their families safe against COVID-19 in Eabametoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario. Erin hopes to ship many more of these to communities who request these supplies.


THE BALLANTYNE PROJECT VIRTUAL PRESENTATIONS

Dwight will be doing the We See You presentation that he was doing in schools virtually for the first time this week. He will be part of the KTTA (Kamloops Teachers Association) and the CANeLearn 2020 Digital Learning Symposium that has now been turned into a virtual conference. Dwight is excited to learn how to share the presentation in this manner. Learn more about the Ballantyne Project by clicking HERE.




FAT BIKE EXPEDITION RAISES $12000 FOR TRUE NORTH AID

A huge thank you to Buck Miller, Ryan Atkins and Eric Batty from Expeditions Ontario for raising over $10,000 for True North Aid during their fat bike expedition on the Wapusk Trail in northern Ontario and Manitoba. The team traveled over 750 km on the world’s longest seasonal road in March.

Our goal is to work together with the cyclists to produce a program in one of the communities that they have visited. Check out their photos on Instagram of their journey.