Global Legacy Foundation gives back
Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter
The Global Legacy Foundation is excited for their second annual fundraising event on Sept. 27. The foundation was first created in June of 2012 and since then organizers have been going full force, working on getting it out and into the community.
“The Global Legacy Foundation actually came out of Global Training Centre (GTC) as another avenue for us to be able to reach out to the community and help everybody. Mostly primarily regarding safety and safety issues,” said Angela Beemer, editing department supervisor with GTC.
The fundraising event will include a silent auction and dance, and funds raised will be split between the Global Legacy Foundations three mandates.
One of the mandates for the foundation is helping families who have been affected by workplace injuries. The second is educating children and youth about safety.
“We are just starting to roll out two brand new programs. One is what we’re calling our Junior Courage Program and it’s going to be from preschool all the way up to Grade 6,” said Beemer.
A couple of the instructors at GTC are firefighters for the Strathmore Fire Department. Beemer said they are working on a plan to go into the schools and teach fire safety in conjunction with local fire departments. The hope is to have a program ready and approach the schools for the second week of October, in time for Fire Prevention Week.
“Our ultimate goal is we want to actually design and build a trailer that is a fire simulation trailer so that we can bring it to the schools and the kids can go in and it’s actually like walking into a kitchen or walking into a bedroom and actually simulate a fire situation and get them using fire extinguishers. That’s our ultimate goal,” said Beemer.
For now, though, the program will begin with in-class training.
Another program being taught under educating children and youth about safety is the EYE (Educating Young Employees) on Safety program.
“We’re hoping that we could work through the school system as well as some of the businesses who hire a lot of the teens for…their first job and work with them on how to be safe at work and what to notice at work,” said Beemer.
The third mandate is Community Initiatives, which is going out into the community and lending a hand.
“This year the biggest thing that we did is we went down and helped out the Wyndham families and the Wyndham residents. That’s where and how Global Legacy and Global Training Centre became part of going down and helping out. It started with one family and then it expanded and went from there. It’s been a great experience, it has been wonderful to meet everybody from down there,” said Beemer.
All the proceeds from the fundraising event will be divided equally between the three mandates. The third of the funds that goes towards Community Initiatives will go to Wyndham.
“They still really need the funds down there. It’s amazing how far they’ve come, and I can’t even imagine how much work and how many hours of work went into all that they’ve been doing down there. When we went down there I didn’t at first recognize some of the places, because it’s green again, and there’s grass again and it’s not just all mud,” said Beemer.
Beemer said every single place they went to people were outside and they were all working. They were repairing fences, digging things out.
The flood, while a terrible thing, has also brought the community together. Some didn’t know their neighbours before the flood, and now they have built a bond over the destruction.
“It’s really becoming a very strong community down there,” said Beemer.
This year the foundation has a new platinum sponsor: the Days Inn has signed on in a show of support for one year; and of course Global Training Centre continues to be a platinum sponsor. There are also a number of fundraising event sponsors.
The Sept. 27 event is a private event and tickets will not be sold at the door. Anyone looking for more information about tickets can contact the foundation by emailing info@globallegacyfoundation.org.