Active lakecity volunteers Ron Malmas and Steven Nesbitt are leaving Williams Lake this month with heavy hearts and great expectations.
The partners moved to Williams Lake from Quesnel in 2007 to take over management of Compassionate Care Funerals which opened here in 1999.
They are leaving Williams Lake to accept positions with MacKay’s Funeral Services in Terrace.
“Even now that we’ve made the decision to go it is still tough,” Malmas said.
It is tough to go because they have made many friends in the lakecity through their work and by becoming active community volunteers.
Until recently Malmas was a member of the local Elks Club.
He has been a member of the Rotary Club of Williams Lake Daybreak for nine years, almost consistently serving on the board of directors and twice as president.
He has served on the Daybreak Rotary’s Stampede Parade committee for eight years, the past two years as committee chair.
Nesbitt has been studying and apprenticing for the past two years to become a licensed funeral director, and will become a fully licensed director this fall.
He says he prefers to work quietly behind the scenes supporting whatever volunteer work Malmas is involved in.
He has served as the Daybreak Rotary’s Stampede Parade committee photographer and set up the new website for the parade.
Through Daybreak Rotary Malmas was responsible for bringing the Starfish Pack program to designated schools in the region. The program sends children who may be at risk for hunger on weekends, home on Fridays with a backpack filled with food.
From Terrace Malmas will continue to co-ordinate the Daybreak Rotary’s Starfish Pack program for the Cariboo and northern regions of B.C. which will bring him back to Williams Lake periodically for meetings.
“It’s because I heard the words ‘starving children’,” Malmas says of his reason for starting the Starfish Pack program. “I had been on ministry assistance years ago when my kids were small. I just remember what a challenge it was sometimes. We would go without food so the kids could eat. Every week I see smiles on children’s faces and that just makes it all worthwhile.”
Both Malmas and Nesbitt have also been active volunteers with St. Andrew’s United Church and the Cariboo Chilcotin Child Development Centre (CDC).
“Wherever we can spend time volunteering, you will find us there,” Nesbitt says.
Malmas has served on the CDC board for the past six years. He has also served on the St. Andrew’s church board and has, on occasion, led services and performed marriage ceremonies as a lay minister.
Taking the new positions in Terrace will allow both Nesbitt and Malmas to fully utilize their skills and training with MacKay’s Funeral Services where they will both look after the crematorium and funeral home along with the manager.
Malmas will serve as the head funeral director and embalmer.
Nesbitt will serve as a licensed funeral director.
Malmas said they had no intention of leaving Williams Lake until they got a call — which they almost didn’t answer because it was coming in from Hawaii and they thought it was from telemarketers.
He jokes that friends tell them they were “headhunted.”
He said the owner of MacKay’s told them he had heard good things about the service they provide so they agreed to go to Terrace for an interview.
“We were both offered fulfilling positions,” Malmas said, adding that he is looking forward to having a little more free time to try fly fishing.