Submitted by Pastor Janaki Bandara,
The Church of St Edmund’s
The St Edmund’s Annual yard sale returned with full community support this summer. Most of the people who came out on yard sale day to help were not church members, but friends from the community who wanted to support our efforts. (Plus, who doesn’t love a yard sale, and the chance to engage in the back-and-forth haggling?)
In previous, pre-pandemic years, the municipal council allowed yard sale supporters to park without being ticketed. The understanding being that our church held this annual fundraiser to support the community of Tobermory. This summer, tickets were issued, and yard sale helpers in fact ended up ministering to the ticketing officer as we heard how people sometimes are very unkind to the officers who enforce parking regulations in the beautiful North Bruce Peninsula.
We were very thankful for the Bruce Peninsula Press for running a front-page article to celebrate the donation we were able to make from Yard Sale profits, a cheque for $3,500 being given to the Tobermory daycare as our gift to the community.
The gifts also given were municipal parking tickets. Knowing well the past generosity of our municipality, one of our church leaders, Jamie Oliver, reached out to the Deputy Mayor requesting that tickets issued to our supporters be waived. This request was made as a means of the council recognizing and supporting our efforts in helping to build a stronger Tobermory. Unfortunately, that request was denied by Council.
We do understand. We recognize that sometimes it is necessary to give unto Caesar (or the North Bruce Peninsula) what is Caesar’s (or the North Bruce Peninsula’s) and give onto God what is God’s. We wanted to make sure our valued helpers were not left out of pocket for their generous gifts of time and talents in the valiant yard sale industry (that is quite the cottage industry here on the Peninsula). So we are committed to providing reimbursement from the Church of St Edmund’s pockets to help those who received tickets while attending our Yard Sale.
We understand that returning to pre-pandemic norms may take a few kicks at the can. We hope, going forward, the North Bruce Municipality will be our partner in building our community up.
We believe in both supporting and respecting our community resources. We are thankful for all those who came out to help to make our yard sale a success, and to help us at St Edmund’s to support the daycare of Tobermory.
