The Rotary Club of Williams Lake Daybreak’s campaign for literacy that resulted in the establishment of a library at the Tl’esqox First Nation has been duly noted, at the very least, by the other rotary club in Williams Lake.
Daybreak’s work has spawned a partnership between the Williams Lake Rotary Club, the Stone Nation and the Rotary Club of Sechelt to bring literacy resources to that First Nation community.
On June 2, the ambition of the Daybreak club, the Tl’esqox First Nation, the Rotary Club of Langley Central and the Rotary Club of Langley came to fruition as the library was opened by B.C.’s Lt. Gov. Steven Point.
It was a project that also involved Langley company Britco and four local business owners, Bruce Forseille, Pat Blackwood, Chris Hutton and Glen Doughty, all who, according to Shirley-Pat Gale, literacy ambassador for Government House Rotary International Project for the Cariboo-Chilcotin region, generously donated their time and made the project possible helping to move and install the building.
“Daybreak couldn’t have done it without Bruce and Pat,” said Gale. “It would have taken me longer. It still would have happened but it would have taken another two or three years to raise the money.”
The installation of the building and the collection of the books was the first phase in a four-year project that will proceed under the direction of Tl’esqox.
The club has made a commitment of $20,000 over that time.
“This is just the first phase of the project. The next phase we go out to meet with the literacy committee at Tl’esqox and we’re going to talk about what the next phase is,” Gale said.
“It’s their community; it’s their library and we want to work with them.”
So while the Daybreak club continues its work; the Williams Lake Rotary Club is just getting started on theirs having recently received 34 boxes of gently used books.