I joined a Seniors project initiated by Calgary Family Services called the Elder Service Corps. The nine month course instructs Seniors on how to become community activists and leaders in the community.  A facilitator mentors the Seniors in role playing activities to show the members how to recruit members into forming a community project of their own choosing.

I became involved in the Elder Service Corps through our Winston Heights Community Centre last year when I joined the Winston Heights garden committee to help build the community garden. Here I am standing in front of my community garden bed in August. I found out their were therapeutic yoga classes being held at the community centre twice a week and it was at the yoga classes that I was approached to join the elder service corps project.  My project with another senior is to develop a historical digital history of the Filipino and Chinese Community in Calgary that will be multi-generational to preserve the cultural legacy of these communities with the emphasis on education of the ethnic communities and to disseminate the cultural history to the greater community to foster tolerance and understanding with respect to the Canadian mosaic.

Winston Heights Community Garden

Here is a fall picture of the Winston Heights Community Garden. The garden committee raised $170,000 and spent $160,000 dollars in building 52 four by eight community garden beds that were rented out for 50 dollars a year.  The city of Calgary installed a watering system with water spigots so water was available. The community members used their sweat equity to build all the beds. I myself rented a bed.  In my community bed 10 tomato plants produced over 450 cherry roma tomatoes.

As of August 15, 2015 here is my garden plot.  Sunflowers were seven feet tall. Other vegetables in the plot included carrots, lettuce, broccoli, beans, Chinese peas, collarabi , and tomatoes. Shortly after this photo was taken I pruned the majority of the tomato leaves from the tomato plants and just left the green tomatoes exposed. Green tomatoes photosynthesize like the green leaves. By trimming off the leaves more energy and nutrients flow into the tomatoes making them larger and since they are exposed to the sun they ripen on the vine.

My New Projects

It has been several months since I last blogged an item. I have become involved in several projects such doing a corporate video for Suncor in November of 2015 and then the oil patch crumbled so thus ended future projects.  I have become a Buddhist and a follower of the Pai Yuin True Buddha school who recognizes Sheng Len Lu as the true living Buddha.  The Buddhism that I follow is the tantric Buddhism that  follows a lineage of Padamakura. I am also on the Winston Heights community garden committee that created 52 organic gardening beds in the community centre. I am also a director on the Calgary Lees' Association and hoping to help revitalize the 100 year old benevolent association that still exists in Calgary's Chinatown. I have also been tutoring Buddhist monks in reading, writing and speaking English that will assist them in communication Buddhism in the English language. I have also joined a community group called the Elder Service corps dedicated to forming community projects to give back community service to the community. I still maintain my greenhouse that has expanded to include tropical fish, orchids, house plants and growing bedding plants for the summer. I have one of the few greenhouses that have fig trees that produce figs.