Arctic Rose brings Christmas cheer
Cambridge Bay receives food donation for needy residents from effort supported by recording artist Susan Aglukark
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Monday, December 21, 2015
IKALUKTUTIAK/CAMBRIDGE BAY
Arviat songstress Susan Aglukark's Arctic Rose Project shipped $2,000 worth of food to Cambridge Bay from Edmonton to help out the food bank during the busy Christmas season.
"The food bank plays a huge role in the community," said Arctic Rose Project volunteer board member Darrell Ohokannoak.
The Cambridge Bay Wellness Centre hosts the food bank.
Ohokannoak says the food received, with help from Canadian North, is mostly non-perishable.
"There was some canned food, stuff for baking. Bannock is one of our staples, so there's a lot of stuff to make bannock. There's quite a bit of rice - rice has a much, much longer shelf life than potatoes. And quite a bit of pasta. Every little bit helps."
Ohokannoak and Aglukark are old high school friends.
"We've always remained close," he said, adding he was more than happy to help out with her vision.
"Susan got in touch with me in February last winter. It's about the time the topic of food security was at its highest point in the media. That hit quite hard because she knows first-hand what it's like to not have food security."
Aglukark's project is all about volunteering and community ties - ties that reach from community to community across Nunavut. And although it started out with a few food donations, it's about much more than that.
"The primary goal of the Arctic Rose Project is to begin to reinvigorate community life, from the community itself," said Aglukark, who currently lives in Oakville, Ont.
"The way I'm trying to do this is to partner with or assist in grassroots level volunteer programs and groups. But there are many parts to the project. As you know, life in small-town Nunavut is very complicated. As simple as it is, it's also very complicated."
Aglukark is working on a partnership between a fabric company in southern Canada with a couple of women in Arviat who began a parka-making campaign.
"They make a bunch of parkas for needy children and they do everything on their own and donate parkas to children who need them for the winter. So groups like that," said Aglukark. "If something like that comes to my ear, the Arctic Rose Project will try to find a partner to sponsor those 100 per cent volunteer programs."
What started with Aglukark auctioning off her painting to raise the cost of shipping a box of food to a family is turning into an organization with quarterly campaigns, meaning every three months Aglukark will involve herself in a project.
The food bank campaign is solely for the Christmas season.
"The goal is to help alleviate stress around feeding families over the holiday," she said.
"I'm just now in the final stages of developing and getting set to launch a writing competition for Inuit youth across Nunavut that will get launched in January."
Aglukark says the whole idea is "to get our young people to read, to write, to research Inuit history."
"The first quarter campaign might be different every year, but it will be an arts-based campaign. The second quarter runs from April to the end of June and I have a group of wonderful, beautiful, very generous retired teachers in Oakville. We're talking about what they can do."
They are teaming up with the woman who runs the second-hand store in Iqaluit, who, in conversation, mentioned young women graduating from high school have a hard time affording gowns for the milestone event in their lives.
"These women have now organized, and we're going to co-ordinate, gown donation."
The third quarter campaign will take place in September and will focus on suicide prevention.
"The moving part for me is if I hear from someone in Taloyoak who says, 'We've got two men here working on getting young boys out on the land and we need $200 for gas ...' If it's all volunteer, I will figure out how to help them."
Aglukark says the point of the Arctic Rose Project is "if we're going to change our communities for the better, it has to begin at the community level."
"As the groups become more organized and become more engaged and more involved in their community programs or events or their own community for the future of their children, the Arctic Rose will take on a new life and take it to the next level. Whatever we all together identify that next level to be," she said.
