Tillicum Centre and the Fraser Inclusive and Supportive Housing Society (FISH) are giving a huge thank you to Macro Industries Inc. for donating $10,000 towards the upcoming Kwas House.
“What happened was, all the (Macro Industries) camps have been collecting bottles in those big bins. Everytime someone had an empty water bottle they would throw it in the big bin,” said George Preston, the treasurer for FISH. “And they were kind enough to approach (Tillicum) and say ‘hey, can you guys use this?’ Because they (Tillicum) sort bottles in the basement, as part of their program. So, too many bottles came in. It was crazy.
Macro Industries is a mid-sized pipeline and facility construction company currently working in Hope. According to Trez Wagner and Jesse Mann, who work for company, Macro donated the bottles to Tillicum after hearing about it when searching for a “worthy cause.”
Preston, who volunteered to help, said that it took over three days — with help from the current Hope Secondary School Grad students — to sort all the bottles. The money obtained from the bottles then went towards FISH (for the Kwas house), Tillicum, and the Grad students.
According to Preston, the money given to FISH is going towards building the Kwas house — a 14-unit building, on Hudson Bay Street near 5th Avenue, that will provide independent living housing for adults with developmental disabilities. Being built thanks to a partnership between FISH and the Anhart Community Housing Society (ACHS), the property was donated by Olga Kwas, a longtime resident of Hope, who currently lives in Agassiz. Thanks to her donation, FISH was able to start the process to construct the building. This includes hiring architects, obtaining architectal plans and blueprints for the new building, demolishing the old house on the property, and starting to obtain contracts for the various trade components needed.
At the moment, Preston said FISH is currently waiting on one more permit before they can start construction. They also plan on sending in an application to BC Housing to obtain additional funding, of hopefully a few million dollars, which is still needed for construction.
Throughout this process, Preston said FISH has been incredibly grateful to the Hope community and the District of Hope, who have been nothing but supportive. FISH, he said, is grateful for the continued donations and the overall enthusiasm displayed by Hope for this project.
“We’re grateful for all of the tremendous support (we’ve received) from the community. From Fundraiser on the Fraser, and all of the good things that keep coming towards us,” Preston said. “We still have some of that money left and we’ve been paying it out. Like, I just wrote a check for $16,000 to pay Anhart for all the work they’ve done and are doing for us. Because they’ve done tremendous work.”