An unexpected intergenerational alliance was formed when volunteers from Leo Hayes came together in solidarity with the Pine Grove Nursing Home after suffering a robbery that saved their annual Festival of Lights.
Every year, the nursing home puts forward an event to light up the place with holiday-themed lights and fundraise money for the residents. However, this year the festival was almost cancelled when they discovered someone had stole the copper wiring.
A team of volunteers from the nursing home, students from Leo Hayes High School, five contractors, around 12 people from the Pine Grove committee helped to save the event and bring the lights back to life. They were also assisted by businesses including Tim Hortons, Bird Stairs Fredericton, Harris & Roome/Graybar, Rexel Atlantic, and Eddy Group Limited collaborated to revive the Festival of Lights.
“[The robbery] would have been the end of the program,” said Joe Dobbelsteyn, 86-year-old electrician and founder of the Pine Grove Nursing Home.
Dobbelstyn said they noticed something was wrong when there was a problem with the drill while putting up the Christmas trees. After doing some investigating, he found an 18-inch piece of cable laying on the ground, which was unusual.
“When I saw that I said, ‘we are in big trouble,’” he said. “I was shocked.”
Pine Grove Nursing Home, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, has been running the Festival of Lights for 14 years and has never had a problem until now, according to Dobbelsteyn.
“We average $30,000 a year with [the Festival of Lights],” he said. “The nursing home board identifies the need, the Christmas tree program finds the money.”
Dobbelsteyn said that after finding out about the missing materials, the community immediately responded to give the nursing home a hand.
“Another company that I’m familiar with, they call and said, ‘Go and see Mr. Dobbelsteyn, find out what he needs to help,’” he said. “It was a relief because I was trying to do it myself.”
Despite garnering a lot of community response, there was still a lot of work to do and missing materials. That is when Joell Gallant and his three high school electrician classes volunteered.
Joell Gallant, a skilled trades teacher at Leo Hayes High School, said as soon as he found out about the theft, he started getting in contact with professionals, finding electrical supplies and asking the principal for school buses.
“I thought it was a perfect chance to do something good. I thought it was just hard enough that it would challenge the students that I have,” said Gallant.
He said that the students were nervous at first, but the professionals who helped guide the different groups of students were kind and helpful.
“We couldn’t have asked for better people,” said Gallant. “If they were nervous at first, they got a little more confidence as the day went on and then afterward, they’re very proud of what they did.”
One Grade 12 student, Logan Curtis, said helping the nursing home was “a really great experience.”
“It gives me a feeling of hope,” he said. “Because if someone who has almost no idea what they’re doing can actually get work done … if something happens like that, again, it’s going to be manageable.”
Curtis said that after Gallant told the class about the opportunity to help out Pine Grove, most of the students signed up.
“I was like, ‘wow, how could somebody do that?’’ he said. “[The Festival of Lights] is for people who really can’t get out and see much themselves anymore, and it’s something that’s really important to them, and someone just goes ahead and steals it.”
Gallant said that the reason he brought the high school students is for the values that they get from giving back to the community.
“On Friday we watched all the TV and I said, ‘Look how many people are proud of what you did and are thankful for what you did.’ And the very next thing that they said was, ‘Is there anywhere else that we could help out?’” said Gallant.
