Twenty Bowen Island households got a very special delivery Saturday evening.
After recently selling quite a few apple trees grafted from their orchard, Christine Hardie and Rob Purdy decided to donate some of the money back to the island.
“We wanted to do something that was more unexpected,” said Purdy. “And that would help a few people out.”
So they got in touch with Renee Turner and Zac Bligh, owners of Tell Your Friends Café, which is currently closed due to COVID-19.
“[They] asked us if we wanted to produce $1,000 worth of food for people,” explains Bligh. Bligh and Turner came up with the idea of asking islanders nominate other people they thought were deserving of baskets of food.
“We just got sort of inundated with nominations,” says Bligh. They wound up with 19 deserving islanders and the 20th basket went to Rob and Christine for their gift to the community.
Coconut curry carrot soup, coconut yoghurt, sweets, bread, compote, some drinks numbered among the baskets’ contents, though Bligh and Turner also curated the baskets based on dietary restrictions. They included an organic apple in every basket as a tribute to the funds’ origin.
Bligh and Turner spent all day Saturday cooking and it was 7:30 p.m. in the evening and nearly dark by the time they got in their cars––Turner delivering to one half of the deliveries, Bligh the other. (You can imagine trying to make deliveries in the dark on Bowen.)
“We ended up sort of just catching people sort of by surprise a little bit or just set like a cute moment in their night,” said Bligh.
While the couple had asked that nominators tell the nominees that this was happening, it appears that hadn’t always happened. “Some people it sounded like they didn't know that this thing had been nominated and they were totally caught off guard,” said Bligh, so he’d tell these islanders, “Someone's out there thinking of you and we've got this package full of food for you.”
Some of the baskets recipients were folks who’ve emerged as leaders in the pandemic––Nancy Lee of Snug Cove General Store, municipal councillor Maureen Nicholson, and Candice and Miguel Kabantsov of Copper Spirit Distillery.
“Everyone was so humble and modest and saying, you know, other people deserve it,” says Bligh.
Other deserving folks were those who have come upon more difficult times because of the pandemic. “I know we hit a few people who really were in need of this, says Bligh.
As for the response, “The day after someone was tearing up on a phone call, just saying, you just don't know how much this means. And it's not about the food necessarily, it's just at a time like this, just to have this gesture,” says Bligh.
“It was so fun to be a part of.”
Bligh and Turner have a few more baskets they’re going to give to people they feel are deserving and while their café is closed, they are filling weekly(ish) orders––the information for that is on their facebook page.
