Fonds contains administrative records, minutes, and correspondence (including print-outs of emails) of the SHS steering committee, and monthly newsletters of the Cortes Island Seniors Society. Original order has been maintained.
Seniors Helping Seniors was an initiative of the Cortes Island Seniors Society, started and administered in 2003 by a dedicated subcommittee with a hired coordinator. Volunteers of the project, seniors themselves, provided company, transportation, and practical assistance to Cortes Island seniors. The coordinator managed volunteers and arranged social events, which included weekly lunches, trips off-island to Quadra craft studios and to the pool in Campbell River, rides to appointments, memoir writing, and eventually the Literary Afternoons.
With rising costs and the focus of the Seniors' Society board turning more to the ongoing operation of the Seniors' Village cottages, the SHS program was replaced by a new grant-funded initiative in March 2023. Volunteers have largely been replaced by paid employees who are overseen by a new board renamed "Support Our Seniors."
Custodial History
Donated to CIMAS by Elinore Harwood on behalf of the Cortes Island Seniors Society in 2023.
Scope and Content
Fonds contains administrative records, minutes, and correspondence (including print-outs of emails) of the SHS steering committee, and monthly newsletters of the Cortes Island Seniors Society. Original order has been maintained.
Cortes Island Seniors Building Society handout about Seniors Helping Seniors; newsletter about the Seniors website project; article from the Howling Wolf.
Sous-fonds consists of records of the Cortes Island Women's Institute. It is arranged in nine series: Minutes, Reports, Financial, Administrative Records, Correspondence, Subject Files, Ephemera, Photographs and Artifacts.
The Cortes Island Women's institute was formed in 1984. Although Cortes Island had historically been difficult to traverse, and the communities consequently insular, by the 1980s the road systems were such that "a Women's Institute for the whole of Cortes Island" seemed to make sense.
CIWI was founded with the bank balance of a Manson's Landing service group called the Ladies Guild, which was founded in the 1940s. When membership and activity in the guild declined in the 1970s, the focus was shifted to a renovation and addition to Manson's Hall. Once the Hall had been sufficiently updated, it was thought that the remaining funds might be put to use "creating an instrument for better communication between all our women and a chance to work together in the community".
Charter members of the CIWI were Heather Berry, Peggy Newsham, Maryann McCoy, Linda Hendricks, and Mary Block.
Custodial History
Records were donated to CIMAS by the Island Women's Club in 2009.
Scope and Content
Sous-fonds consists of records of the Cortes Island Women's Institute. It is arranged in nine series: Minutes, Reports, Financial, Administrative Records, Correspondence, Subject Files, Ephemera, Photographs and Artifacts.