Press & Media - Brandy Hunt's Community Involvement
A playable piece of art was unveiled in downtown Creston on Aug. 12 — a public piano in the Canyon Street Walkthrough. Brightly painted by artist and Creative Fix owner Brandy Hunt, the piano is available for all ages and skill levels to enjoy.
"I wanted it to be colorful, childlike and fun," she said in a brochure handed out at the event. "I poured my heart into hoping that it will get noticed, but more importantly, played. I love the fact that this piano will inspire others to reveal their creative talents in the downtown core. So awesome."
The unveiling was combined with an art show featuring 15 paintings by Hunt, with the theme, "Sounds from the Valley", and featured musical entertainment by Creston Community band leader Monte Anderson on the new piano, after which members of the public had a chance to try it out.
The project was spearheaded by the Creston Rotary Club, which worked alongside the Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce and Town of Creston to bring it to reality. Panago and Pharmasave also sponsored the unveiling.
"I wanted it to be colorful, childlike and fun," she said in a brochure handed out at the event. "I poured my heart into hoping that it will get noticed, but more importantly, played. I love the fact that this piano will inspire others to reveal their creative talents in the downtown core. So awesome."
The unveiling was combined with an art show featuring 15 paintings by Hunt, with the theme, "Sounds from the Valley", and featured musical entertainment by Creston Community band leader Monte Anderson on the new piano, after which members of the public had a chance to try it out.
The project was spearheaded by the Creston Rotary Club, which worked alongside the Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce and Town of Creston to bring it to reality. Panago and Pharmasave also sponsored the unveiling.
By Brian Lawrence
Two murals destined to brighten up the Cook Street location of the Creston Valley Farmers’ Market were unveiled Oct. 16, which, fittingly, was World Food Day. The murals were a joint project between Cresteramics Society and the farmers’ market, painted by Cresteramics clients Claire Lemaire and Laila Currie, who added colour to a design by artist and Creative Fix owner Brandy Hunt. |
Titled
Homegrown Heart, the murals were created in memory of Beth Kastelan and
Alcide Lemaire — respectively, a former Cresteramics board member and
father of one of the painters — and the project was a first for the two
groups.
“The two organizations have never worked together before, so I see this as a beginning of an important partnership,” said farmers’ market manager Comer. “We were able to pool our resources, our people, our energy and time for something that benefits the whole community.” The murals project was sponsored by Telus, Columbia Basin Trust, Home Hardware Building Centre and Pyramid Building Supplies, and couldn’t have come at a better time. “There’s been a need for a long time for something for the kids over the summer,” said project co-ordinator Jesse Willicome. Along with the painters, Willicome and Comer, Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall was on hand for the unveiling at the Creston Valley Chamber of Commerce, along with Cresto and Crestorina, gnomes she picked up at the Cresteramics shop. “We’re going to be able to celebrate local art, we’re going to be able to celebrate local food at the farmers’ market, and it’s all coming together right here,” she said. |
Story by: Brian Bell
Count Your Blessings
A Grateful Heart Contest sparks flood of heart-warming entries A mutual admiration society is emerging, although Brandy Dyer and Natalie Santano nearly came to blows while exchanging kudos over an exciting joint project announced here in I Love Creston: an anthology to be published this month.
“Brandy is really doing the artsy stuff to this book,” Santano begins. “She’s totally making each page a beautiful piece of art. The credit should go to her for that.”
“No, no, it’s all your photos,” Dyer counters.
“She’s putting a lot of time and energy into this,” rebuts Santano, unwilling to give an inch.
OK, OK, ladies. Break it up. We get the picture.
Their feelings of genuine appreciation are not only mutual but highly appropriate given the nature of the book, which stems from their summertime promotion, A Grateful Heart Contest. Launched in July and running through mid-September, the contest invited clients of both self-employed businesswomen to submit “gratitude stories,” personal tales about things they are thankful for.
What started out as a simple means of focusing on what’s important and not taking life for granted morphed into an outpouring of heartfelt anecdotes from more than 200 people expressing gratitude for a variety of blessings, great and small. Most fell within the Twitter-like guidelines of 150 words or less, though some were just a single sentence and a few required essay-length submissions to convey.
“We didn’t know what to expect as far as the stories coming in,” says Santano, of Natalie Santano Photography. “Once we announced the contest we got flooded with these amazing stories. Some were simple like, ‘I’m grateful for chocolate.’ Some were more intense, where people had suffered in life and bad thing after bad thing after bad thing had happened but they came out . . . stronger people. They haven’t let it crush their soul.”
“They found the gold nugget in all of the bad,” sums up Dyer, “which was really neat to read.”
It’s a plotline not unlike her own, which was featured in the February 2011 edition of I Love Creston and is chronicled in a blog. Widowed at 30, the mother of two girls summoned an inner strength she didn’t know existed and has since renewed her artistic passions, expanded her business and happily remarried, all while finding community outlets for her thankfulness through children’s art classes and the Grateful Heart contest.
“I got to the point in my life where I’d had Imagine Ink for 12 years and I was just feeling like a change but I couldn’t figure out what that was,” says the graphic designer, referring to her10th Avenue Northprint ship. “I started making art again – my kids are older – so I started getting into that creative mode again and I started teaching art classes for kids as a creative outlet and found that I really liked it.
“Then I renovated the basement (at Imagine Ink) to make an art studio for the kids, because I was doing it out of my house and it was just too much, so I moved it here and started making my art here too. Then I thought it would be nice to somehow tie this all together.”
The brainstorming led to Creative Fix opening on the premises in May. It’s a combination art gallery, gift store and specialty beverage shop that reflects some of her favourite things.
“I was making all this art and there really wasn’t anywhere to sell it in town,” she says. “I have always had a vision of owning a cute little gallery sort of store and . . . I’ve always secretly wanted a coffee shop because I love coffee. It just seemed to go together.”
The Creative Fix storefront features Dyer’s own artwork and items handmade by nearly a dozen others, everything from pottery and jewelry to hair clips, soap and purses – about 25 per cent of the merchandise locally crafted.
Imagine Ink is at the back and the art studio in the basement. In every month she can find the time she offers weekly classes for two groups of up to 10 children each.
“It’s great,” Dyer says. “I feel like I’m living my dream.”
Life, likewise, has been coming up roses lately for Santano, who was also profiled in a previous edition of I Love Creston (January 2011). Since then she’s had a second child with husband Kitt and seen her home-based family portrait business blossom.
“I’m booking farther and farther in advance,” Santano says. “There are people who have weddings booked two years in advance right now. I feel really blessed because there are a lot of photographers out there. I feel so grateful that so many people choose me and that I am so busy.”
The young ones make sure of that, even when her camera is in its case.
“She’s very sweet and mild and laid-back,” Santano says, contrasting her year-old daughter,Liberty, with her more active son, three-year-old Porter. “It’s been a dream come true having one of each.”
She continues to fit in her photo shoots, many of which are on location, around family responsibilities.
“I feel like I’m living my dream.”
“I’m not going to lie. It definitely is a challenge,” Santano says of balancing her career with the maintenance of a growing household. “We definitely have to make it work with Kitt’s schedule, and grandma helps out, and we’ve got a babysitter as well. We all just make it work and it’s going pretty well.”
So how did these talented, multitasking moms get together for A Grateful Heart Contest? Trace it back to that mutual admiration society . . .
“I’ve always really admired Natalie, how creative she is with her photographs, and I love partnering with other businesses,” Dyer says, “so I phoned her up and said, ‘Maybe we should do a contest or something because it would be fun to work together.’
“We brainstormed ideas and came up with this gratitude contest as a way to give back to our clients and customers, because we’re both very grateful for the support we’ve had from the community in both of our businesses.”
That was a month before the contest opened in July, offering a $600 grand prize featuring a portrait session with Santano and a shopping spree at Creative Fix.
“I feel so honoured to be part of something Brandy is doing,” Santano says. “I look up to her more than she knows (as) somebody who’s been through something so tragic and come out as somebody that really, the whole community and anybody that’s ever read her blog, they admire her. She’s an amazing person.”
The response to the contest, promoted through their respective Facebook pages and Dyer’s blog, was, well, gratifying.
“We got an overwhelming response,” Santano says.
“I didn’t expect to get that many,” Dyer adds. “We were e-mailing back and forth, ‘Oh my gosh, Natalie. Read this one.’ ‘Oh my gosh. It brought a tear into my eye.’ Some of them were funny and some of them were just, ‘I’m thankful for coffee,’ like I am thankful for coffee.
“They’re grateful for this stuff because it’s made them who they are today.”
“Some stories were just heart-wrenching, like the 16-year-old who’s on her own and grateful that she can do everything by herself because she’s had nothing but an awful life and now she’s just happy that she’s strong enough to do it on her own.”
“That’s what’s really inspired me,” Santano says, “is people who’ve had those things happen and they’ve overcome. They’re grateful for this stuff because it’s made them who they are today. That really amazes me.”
The pair researched the concept of counting one’s blessings and found that, not only is there no downside, there are tangible benefits.
“It’s amazing how much is online about how enriched our lives are when we are more grateful,” Santano says, “and that’s what we found doing this contest. There are so many people that said, ‘Thank you. I’m so grateful that you gave me the opportunity to express my gratitude story.’ They had never put it down on paper and were able to send it in and they felt so enriched.”
“We got a lot of e-mails,” Dyer says, “even people just saying, ‘Thank you so much. I was having a bad day and it was so nice just to remember something simple like what a beautiful town we live in or we’re so safe and we have such an easy life inCanada– just the things you take for granted. It was people thanking us for being reminded of the simple things and how good we have it.”
Entries were submitted anonymously online. Entrants could register for the draw prize by posting a Thank You message on Facebook. All but two were female, not because men aren’t grateful, Dyer surmises, but more likely because “they’re just maybe not our customers.”
In addition to the 200-plus submissions there were an estimated 50 children who contributed stories and as many more photographic entries. A selection was posted online, with approximately 60 gratitude stories to be published in the full-colour, soft-cover book designed by Dyer with generic photos by Santano that relate to the content themes.
“We’ve picked a good variety of the stories that really hit home for us,” Dyer says. “We tried to pick one of each kind of topic.”
Copies go on sale during an Oct. 25 release party called Gratitude Night at Creative Fix, where the book will be available exclusively thereafter. Proceeds are being donated to the pregnancy outreach program of the Creston and District Community Resource Centre Society.
“I’m hoping people will buy it as a nice gift,” Dyer says. “If they want to buy a thank-you gift for somebody they would buy the gratitude book and write on the first page, ‘Thank you so much . . .’ – write their own gratitude story and then give that as a gift. Part of the gift would be that they’re donating to a cause.”
“You can put a little bit of yourself in it before you give it away,” Santano says, “or keep it.”
It is hoped that the book will be inspirational and possibly even attitude-altering.
“That simple sentence, ‘I’m grateful,’ is really powerful,” Santano says. “If we can all just choose to be grateful when we wake up in the morning that will really bless our lives.”
“It’s very easy to be negative,” Dyer adds. “A lot of people can really fall into the negative kind of thinking. It’s a lot more difficult sometimes to be positive.
“It’s nice we got so many nice stories and so many people were grateful for things that you can’t even believe they were grateful for. The book is a good reminder that we’re so lucky to be here. We all have our struggles that we’ve been through but it’s . . . I’m just a very positive person and I believe in finding that gold nugget in the things that are bad.”
This Winner: Cara Campen.
Count Your Blessings
A Grateful Heart Contest sparks flood of heart-warming entries A mutual admiration society is emerging, although Brandy Dyer and Natalie Santano nearly came to blows while exchanging kudos over an exciting joint project announced here in I Love Creston: an anthology to be published this month.
“Brandy is really doing the artsy stuff to this book,” Santano begins. “She’s totally making each page a beautiful piece of art. The credit should go to her for that.”
“No, no, it’s all your photos,” Dyer counters.
“She’s putting a lot of time and energy into this,” rebuts Santano, unwilling to give an inch.
OK, OK, ladies. Break it up. We get the picture.
Their feelings of genuine appreciation are not only mutual but highly appropriate given the nature of the book, which stems from their summertime promotion, A Grateful Heart Contest. Launched in July and running through mid-September, the contest invited clients of both self-employed businesswomen to submit “gratitude stories,” personal tales about things they are thankful for.
What started out as a simple means of focusing on what’s important and not taking life for granted morphed into an outpouring of heartfelt anecdotes from more than 200 people expressing gratitude for a variety of blessings, great and small. Most fell within the Twitter-like guidelines of 150 words or less, though some were just a single sentence and a few required essay-length submissions to convey.
“We didn’t know what to expect as far as the stories coming in,” says Santano, of Natalie Santano Photography. “Once we announced the contest we got flooded with these amazing stories. Some were simple like, ‘I’m grateful for chocolate.’ Some were more intense, where people had suffered in life and bad thing after bad thing after bad thing had happened but they came out . . . stronger people. They haven’t let it crush their soul.”
“They found the gold nugget in all of the bad,” sums up Dyer, “which was really neat to read.”
It’s a plotline not unlike her own, which was featured in the February 2011 edition of I Love Creston and is chronicled in a blog. Widowed at 30, the mother of two girls summoned an inner strength she didn’t know existed and has since renewed her artistic passions, expanded her business and happily remarried, all while finding community outlets for her thankfulness through children’s art classes and the Grateful Heart contest.
“I got to the point in my life where I’d had Imagine Ink for 12 years and I was just feeling like a change but I couldn’t figure out what that was,” says the graphic designer, referring to her10th Avenue Northprint ship. “I started making art again – my kids are older – so I started getting into that creative mode again and I started teaching art classes for kids as a creative outlet and found that I really liked it.
“Then I renovated the basement (at Imagine Ink) to make an art studio for the kids, because I was doing it out of my house and it was just too much, so I moved it here and started making my art here too. Then I thought it would be nice to somehow tie this all together.”
The brainstorming led to Creative Fix opening on the premises in May. It’s a combination art gallery, gift store and specialty beverage shop that reflects some of her favourite things.
“I was making all this art and there really wasn’t anywhere to sell it in town,” she says. “I have always had a vision of owning a cute little gallery sort of store and . . . I’ve always secretly wanted a coffee shop because I love coffee. It just seemed to go together.”
The Creative Fix storefront features Dyer’s own artwork and items handmade by nearly a dozen others, everything from pottery and jewelry to hair clips, soap and purses – about 25 per cent of the merchandise locally crafted.
Imagine Ink is at the back and the art studio in the basement. In every month she can find the time she offers weekly classes for two groups of up to 10 children each.
“It’s great,” Dyer says. “I feel like I’m living my dream.”
Life, likewise, has been coming up roses lately for Santano, who was also profiled in a previous edition of I Love Creston (January 2011). Since then she’s had a second child with husband Kitt and seen her home-based family portrait business blossom.
“I’m booking farther and farther in advance,” Santano says. “There are people who have weddings booked two years in advance right now. I feel really blessed because there are a lot of photographers out there. I feel so grateful that so many people choose me and that I am so busy.”
The young ones make sure of that, even when her camera is in its case.
“She’s very sweet and mild and laid-back,” Santano says, contrasting her year-old daughter,Liberty, with her more active son, three-year-old Porter. “It’s been a dream come true having one of each.”
She continues to fit in her photo shoots, many of which are on location, around family responsibilities.
“I feel like I’m living my dream.”
“I’m not going to lie. It definitely is a challenge,” Santano says of balancing her career with the maintenance of a growing household. “We definitely have to make it work with Kitt’s schedule, and grandma helps out, and we’ve got a babysitter as well. We all just make it work and it’s going pretty well.”
So how did these talented, multitasking moms get together for A Grateful Heart Contest? Trace it back to that mutual admiration society . . .
“I’ve always really admired Natalie, how creative she is with her photographs, and I love partnering with other businesses,” Dyer says, “so I phoned her up and said, ‘Maybe we should do a contest or something because it would be fun to work together.’
“We brainstormed ideas and came up with this gratitude contest as a way to give back to our clients and customers, because we’re both very grateful for the support we’ve had from the community in both of our businesses.”
That was a month before the contest opened in July, offering a $600 grand prize featuring a portrait session with Santano and a shopping spree at Creative Fix.
“I feel so honoured to be part of something Brandy is doing,” Santano says. “I look up to her more than she knows (as) somebody who’s been through something so tragic and come out as somebody that really, the whole community and anybody that’s ever read her blog, they admire her. She’s an amazing person.”
The response to the contest, promoted through their respective Facebook pages and Dyer’s blog, was, well, gratifying.
“We got an overwhelming response,” Santano says.
“I didn’t expect to get that many,” Dyer adds. “We were e-mailing back and forth, ‘Oh my gosh, Natalie. Read this one.’ ‘Oh my gosh. It brought a tear into my eye.’ Some of them were funny and some of them were just, ‘I’m thankful for coffee,’ like I am thankful for coffee.
“They’re grateful for this stuff because it’s made them who they are today.”
“Some stories were just heart-wrenching, like the 16-year-old who’s on her own and grateful that she can do everything by herself because she’s had nothing but an awful life and now she’s just happy that she’s strong enough to do it on her own.”
“That’s what’s really inspired me,” Santano says, “is people who’ve had those things happen and they’ve overcome. They’re grateful for this stuff because it’s made them who they are today. That really amazes me.”
The pair researched the concept of counting one’s blessings and found that, not only is there no downside, there are tangible benefits.
“It’s amazing how much is online about how enriched our lives are when we are more grateful,” Santano says, “and that’s what we found doing this contest. There are so many people that said, ‘Thank you. I’m so grateful that you gave me the opportunity to express my gratitude story.’ They had never put it down on paper and were able to send it in and they felt so enriched.”
“We got a lot of e-mails,” Dyer says, “even people just saying, ‘Thank you so much. I was having a bad day and it was so nice just to remember something simple like what a beautiful town we live in or we’re so safe and we have such an easy life inCanada– just the things you take for granted. It was people thanking us for being reminded of the simple things and how good we have it.”
Entries were submitted anonymously online. Entrants could register for the draw prize by posting a Thank You message on Facebook. All but two were female, not because men aren’t grateful, Dyer surmises, but more likely because “they’re just maybe not our customers.”
In addition to the 200-plus submissions there were an estimated 50 children who contributed stories and as many more photographic entries. A selection was posted online, with approximately 60 gratitude stories to be published in the full-colour, soft-cover book designed by Dyer with generic photos by Santano that relate to the content themes.
“We’ve picked a good variety of the stories that really hit home for us,” Dyer says. “We tried to pick one of each kind of topic.”
Copies go on sale during an Oct. 25 release party called Gratitude Night at Creative Fix, where the book will be available exclusively thereafter. Proceeds are being donated to the pregnancy outreach program of the Creston and District Community Resource Centre Society.
“I’m hoping people will buy it as a nice gift,” Dyer says. “If they want to buy a thank-you gift for somebody they would buy the gratitude book and write on the first page, ‘Thank you so much . . .’ – write their own gratitude story and then give that as a gift. Part of the gift would be that they’re donating to a cause.”
“You can put a little bit of yourself in it before you give it away,” Santano says, “or keep it.”
It is hoped that the book will be inspirational and possibly even attitude-altering.
“That simple sentence, ‘I’m grateful,’ is really powerful,” Santano says. “If we can all just choose to be grateful when we wake up in the morning that will really bless our lives.”
“It’s very easy to be negative,” Dyer adds. “A lot of people can really fall into the negative kind of thinking. It’s a lot more difficult sometimes to be positive.
“It’s nice we got so many nice stories and so many people were grateful for things that you can’t even believe they were grateful for. The book is a good reminder that we’re so lucky to be here. We all have our struggles that we’ve been through but it’s . . . I’m just a very positive person and I believe in finding that gold nugget in the things that are bad.”
This Winner: Cara Campen.
Talk about counting their blessings. Brandy Dyer
and Natalie Santano were thankful no one got trampled in the rush to get
a copy of their Grateful Heart Contest anthology.
The Creston business owners capped the contest with an autumn gala Gratitude Night at Dyer’s Creative Fix gift shop, where the commemorative book quickly sold out. “It was packed,” says Dyer, the owner of Creative Fix, pegging the attendance at well over 100 almost exclusively females. “There was a lineup at the door when we opened and it was just crazy. You couldn’t even walk. “It was supposed to be a come-and-go but nobody wanted to leave. It was so fun.” Alas, the supply of anthologies, titled A Grateful Heart, didn’t last long. “We only had 75 books and we sold out of them in, like, 20 minutes,” she says of the demand, which “created a buzz” that warranted a second printing. “So we ordered another 75 books, and then another 30 books, and now it’s kind of tapered off. I might have one or two left.” Two is also how many of a dozen specially crafted, gratitude-themed paintings of Dyer’s that remained by the end of the night. She and Santano pooled all proceeds from the book, along with 15 per cent of store merchandise sales that night, into a $1,300 donation to the pregnancy outreach program run by the Creston and District Community Resource Centre Society. “The whole gratitude book thing was kind of a woman thing. It was mostly women who entered, so we thought it was a good cause that most women would be passionate about, helping young moms,” Dyer says. “We |
tried to pick something that hadn’t been done before. The CRC is so
thrilled because nobody’s ever come to them and said, ‘Hey, can we give
you a bunch of money?’
“I feel like it’s a pretty substantial donation to make to a small (program). They can really do something with that. That money will go a long way.” A Grateful Heart Contest, the brainchild of Dyer and Santano, of Natalie Santano Photography, ran from July through September, inviting clients of both women to submit personal tales about things they are thankful for, dubbed “gratitude stories.” More than 200 people entered anonymously online, with one selected at random to receive a free portrait session with Santano and a Creative Fix shopping spree. About 60 entries were published in the anthology, accompanied by photographs taken by Santano. The whole project “was a ton of work,” Dyer concedes. “It was really intense.” The positive feedback, however, made it all worthwhile. “(We) did get a lot of e-mails,” she says. “I got one in particular saying, ‘You just changed my life right now because I’ve been so down in the dumps. I got this book and it was like I just needed a little kick in the butt.’ “She’s been so negative lately and it reminded her to just get positive. We all need that once in awhile because it’s so easy to be negative.” |
Get your Creative Fix
by Kristen Mitchell, Kootenay Business Magazine Brandy Dyer has been a staple in the Creston art scene for many years. Her business, Imagine Ink, is a successful graphic design and print shop. Additionally, she creates and sells her own playful works of art, often using inspirational words and mixed media, and maintains a blog titled Brandy Ink. Dyer has also been busy renovating her 10th Avenue North shop location. In May she opened the doors to an expanded side of the business. Named Creative Fix, the idea is that this funky new shop will cater to the creative |
side of everyone. Wares vary from hats to clocks, jewelry to teapots. It’s a great place to browse for gift ideas, or get lost contemplating your dream home design.
Creative Fix also satisfies another craving. A variety of iced and hot drinks are sold (either with espresso or without). Deliciously fun flavours such Campfire S’more accompany the more common choices on the menu. Dyer hopes that her expanded business will offer a place for people to meet, browse and feel satisfied on several levels. “We've got so many fun things to take a look at,” said Dyer. “If you haven't already come by, do stop in!” |
PARTY program aims to save Creston teens' lives
by Lorne Eckersley
The March 6 PARTY (Preventing Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth) program ended with Brandy Dyer’s story.
“I got involved because I have had a lot of trauma in my life,” she told students. “On my 16th birthday I got my driver’s licence. After working until 11 p.m. at my waitress job I drove out to a party in Lister, where I was a designated driver. I drove home a car full of girls — most of us had been friends since kindergarten.”
Dyer drove her crew home and went to bed, only to be wakened by a phone call an hour later.
“There has been an accident and it’s bad,” she was told.
Like any typical 16-year-old, she dressed and headed to the hospital, where a crowd of students and parents was milling around, in shock after learning that three boys had been killed. Another would spend months in a coma before recovering; brain damage has erased all of his memories prior to the accident and short-term memory is virtually non-existent, making it impossible for him to hold down a regular job.
“Our class basically went haywire,” Dyer said. “We drank and we smoked and we did drugs and I think we have never really recovered.”
Fast forward a couple of years and the young Brandy Comfort was once again at a party, and once again a designated driver. She took car keys away from one inebriated driver, who wrestled them back from her, promising not to drive. But he did drive, and among his passengers was Tyler Sommerfeld.
“Same f***ing group of friends and we did the same thing again.”
Five years ago, married and the mother of two daughters, Dyer was at work at her Imagine Ink office when a police officer walked in.
“There has been an accident and we think it was your husband,” she was told.
Chris Dyer had got off work and decided to take a motorcycle ride. He put on his pie plate helmet — “He always had to be the tough guy” — and headed down 20th Avenue South. A 16-year-old driver, not paying attention, cut a corner and drove straight into the motorcycle.
“Every bone in Chris’s body was broken,” Dyer said.
He died on the scene.
“That was the worst day of my life, telling my three- and five-year old daughters that their dad had died.”
One of her daughters, Dyer said, “still thinks everybody’s going to die, all of the time. And so do I. When I get a phone call from the school, or almost anywhere, I immediately think that something terrible must have happened.
“If you die, you are the lucky one,” she told the students. “Living through a trauma is unbelievably difficult and you never fully recover from it.”
Readers who wish to donate to help the PARTY program continue can do so at the Kootenai Community Centre Society or drop off envelopes at Imagine Ink on 10th Avenue North. Tax receipts are available.