As the President of our local Citizens On Patrol group in Westlock, AB – I have been mulling this idea around in my head for quite some time but the biggest problem was funding. In March of this year, our group was invited to do a presentation to a wonderful volunteer group here in our town known as “100 Women Who Care”. They meet quarterly and always ask three community groups to come and present their idea of providing some sort of project that the folks of our community would benefit from. With 95 women in attendance at that particular meeting each contributing $100 – our group was chosen to receive the funds in the amount of $9500.00. We were later notified that the donation amount had gone up to $9700.00
Along with the proceeds from our pre-Easter Bingo Event, we had a total of over $11,000.00 to put towards this project. It is safe to say that folks in our community, both town and rural, were very excited and interested to apply for and then receive a FREE good quality Solar Light! Many sent emails of thanks to our group members and our volunteer group has certainly gained a lot of attention and acknowledgement as being a valued one to have in the community. Our membership numbers have even gone up!
Westlock C.O.P. was able to purchase and distribute a total of 384 good quality Solar Lights to community members at NO CHARGE!
Distribution was completed in about two months time and we did have a fellow (not even a COP member) that would install the lights for those who could not do it themselves and then he ended up donating his time to do so! A “win – win” situation!
Fortunately, one of our members, volunteered to store the goods at her home in town and have people sign for them when they came to pick them up, a system that worked very well. To have the most people benefit from this program, the limit was set at one light per household.
Not only have the recipients of the free lights benefited from this endeavor, but our Citizens On Patrol group members can also see the benefits as well while out on patrol at night. Backyards and alleyways that were previously very dark are now better lit up as we are driving by. This helps us to be more effective in our diligence to prevent crime in our neighborhoods! Our local RCMP detachment were very impressed with our group for taking on this project and applaud the benefits of “Lighting Up the Night” as well.
*Our group wishes to thank and acknowledge our local Home Hardware store for working with us AND giving us the benefit of selling all those lights to our group at their cost price! We indeed live in a great little community!