Hank Snow Administrator Vina Moses with Charlotte White. Photo courtesy Friends of Hank Snow Society

A dedicated Liverpool volunteer was honoured in a surprise ceremony Sunday.

Charlotte White thought she was attending the regular annual general meeting of the Hank Snow society.

As she pulled in the driveway of the Hank Snow Museum, it didn’t take long for her to figure out something was up.

“When I drove in the yard and I saw all the cars and I thought oh isn’t this nice, we have so many to turn out ‘cause it was our annual meeting, right?” said White. “Oh, my heavens, and then I saw girl stand in the driveway that worked with me at the food bank and I thought, and then when I went to park, I saw my son’s car and I thought, what is going on here?”

For her longstanding service, the Friends of Hank Snow Society decided to name the room that showcases the famous singer’s outfits in honour of Charlotte White.

Commemorative sign inside museum. Photo courtesy Friends of Hank Snow Society

The ceremony was marked with messages of appreciation for White from MLA Kim Masland and Mayor Darlene Norman.

Administrator at the Hank Snow Museum Vina Moses says the honour is not only deserved but appropriate.

“We thought that would be a nice way to honour her so that when we do tours, we can say this is the Charlotte White room,” said Moses. “Charlotte White is the lady who did a lot for the museum, for the Friends of Hank Snow Society and a lady who loved Hank Snow and loved his music and wanted to make sure that it was remembered.”

Moses says White has been involved since the early days of the Friends of Hank Snow Society and her fingerprints are all over the organization.

While she isn’t as front and centre in day-to-day activities, White continues to be an honorary director.

Moses says when you mention to White you have a need, she puts her experience and connections to work to make it happen.

Moses says the society also wanted to ensure White was recognized for her work establishing the outside canteen, which will now forever bear her name.

“I thought we needed something inside and outside because there may be people who don’t come inside but who are at the outside activities or vice versa, you know. So, her name is in both areas, and I thought it was a deserving recognition that she would have that,” said Moses.

Charlotte White sign on concessions building outside museum. Photo courtesy Friends of Hank Snow Society

Keeping the ceremony a surprise from someone as plugged into the community as White was no easy feat.

Moses says she needed to use White’s own network against her to keep the event under wraps.

By using the phone list White provided, Moses managed to divvy up the guest list into a phone tree for volunteers to reach out to all invitees.

“We knew if we put it out there, numerous, I’m sure hundreds and hundreds of people would have come,” said Moses. “But as I said, we kind of wanted her to know that all those volunteers that she’s called over the years did it because they, you know loved her and loved helping out at Hank Snow and they did it because of Charlotte, I’ll tell you for sure.”

When asked how she felt about having her name emblazoned across the museum White was both excited, and humbled.

“I never got to sleep ‘til about 1:30 this morning ’cause I kept thinking who was that who was that?” said White. “It was wonderful but not necessary, but wonderful.”

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Photo Ed Halverson

The Region of Queens is stepping away from a program that provides people with help to file their income taxes opting to go to a volunteer coordinator.

Mayor Darlene Norman says the municipality has offered staff time to assist with scheduling a program providing people assistance to file their income tax for the past 10 years.

For eight weeks each year, four to six volunteers make themselves available at the Liverpool legion on a weekly basis to help people prepare their income tax.

Norman says a large amount of recreation staff time went into the program answering 2,400 calls in 2021 booking close to 800 appointments.

Because of that investment in resources Norman says the Region looked to the community for a volunteer to take on the coordinator role.

Norman says it didn’t take long for three people to offer their services.

“This is not something that’s the responsibility of municipal government and people recognize that,” said Norman.

She says the new volunteer coordinator will be able to take bookings outside municipal staff hours making the program more flexible for users.

It also shows not every job needs to be taken on by government as there are many people willing to step forward to help their community

“Because they are an at-home person, they’ve had experience with this program before, they understand the workload they’re taking on and they think this would be a great way to give back to people,” said Norman.

Tax preparation clinics will be held by appointment, every Tuesday afternoon from February 22 to April 26, 2022 at the Royal Canadian Legion in Liverpool.

To book an appointment call 902-521-4544.

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Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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Dr. Robert Strang. Photo Nova Scotia Government

The COVID-19 vaccine is now being administered to frontline healthcare workers across Nova Scotia.

The Northern Zone was the final area to establish a vaccination clinic today at the Colchester-East Hants Health Centre.

Public Health is reporting four new COVID-19 cases today. One is close contact of a previously reported case in the Northern Zone. The other three are in the central zone and are related to travel outside Nova Scotia.

The province is also expanding the program to immunize residents of long term care facilities by adding two more homes in Sydney.

The expansion comes as the federal government announced provinces will be getting much less Pfizer vaccine than they had previously been told because of the manufacturer’s plan to revamp one of their production facilities.

Chief medical officer of health for Nova Scotia Dr. Robert Strang says the province was set to receive 13,500 doses this month and is still waiting to hear from Ottawa how much of that we will actually receive.

Strang called it short-term pain for long-term gain.

“And we continue to be told that any reduction we’re getting for February will be added to the supply we can expect in March.”

Strang says their vaccine rollout plan is flexible to allow for increases or decreases in supply.

Since the first vaccines arrived December 15, 8,520 doses have been administered and 2,215 of those have received their second doses to complete their immunization.

Another 5,850 doses arrived in Nova Scotia this week bringing the total number of doses received to 28,850.

The Nova Scotia College of Nursing recently announced retired nurses will receive a conditional license, at no cost, as a measure to increase the number of people available to administer the vaccine injections.

Strang is pleased to see the number of people stepping up to help get the vaccine into Nova Scotians arms.

Based on the number of people who volunteered to assist with pop-up COVID testing clinics, the province is offering people the opportunity to again help out with the upcoming vaccination clinics.

“There was significant buy-in from communities putting their hand up and saying we want to come and help out in some way,” said Strang. “I really think that many Nova Scotians would be more than willing to come forward and say I’m prepared to volunteer my time to help support and run a COVID immunization clinic in my community; knowing, by doing that, they are contributing to their collective safety in that community.

A link to the volunteer page is on our website.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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