By Sean Delaney
How many residents of Emery would be able to name their neighbour’s five doors down from them or in fact someone who lives on the other street? Not many I bet.
It takes time and dedication to create an engaged community.
A wonderful person named Lee Jackson is a shining example to all of us of an Emery Village resident who helps to make this a better place to live. Lee has lived in the same Emery Village home for 52 years.
For 16 years she has hosted a local community BBQ that is free for all to attend. Young and old alike are invited to enjoy hotdogs, salads, donuts (thanks to Tim Horton’s and Ralph Shepherd), candies, coffee and cake. In addition to the food, we saw a big shiny red ladder truck from firehouse 411 on Toryork Rd. show up along with two officers from the mounted horse division of the Metro Toronto Police.
Doris Roy was clowning around for her third year and was a fan favorite by the dozens of young children that attended.
Neighbor Vinay Lakhni and his coworker Mark assisted with the cooking chores – so a big thanks goes out to them.
Luana Papolis of the Emery Village BIA was on hand for face painting duties and worked for nearly two hours showing off her painting skills and creating smiles on all the childrens’ faces.
Hearty congratulations go out to Sunny for winning first prize in the bike rodeo contest for having the best dressed bike. We should also give a round of applause to George Pritchard for attending. Slowly but surely he made his way over to the fun and enjoyed the company.
Our heartfelt thanks once again goes out to Lee and her many friends that helped out this year.
Lee said that she hopes to see everyone again next year!
