You can help Canuck Place give short lives the gift of great days by purchasing a ticket for their 50/50 raffle. Canuck Place Children’s Hospice is British Columbia and Yukon’s pediatric palliative care provider. Over 818 children living with life-threatening illnesses and families from five provincial health regions receive Canuck Place inpatient and community care (in home/in hospital).
Canuck Place 50/50 Raffle
Tickets: Buy online for 3 for $5, 7 for $10, 50 for $20 or 150 for $50
Anticipated Prize: $500,000 to be split with the winner
Available until May 26, 2021
“When you’re buying a ticket, remember that you’re winning because you’re donating to a charitable organization,” says Connie from Salt Spring Island who split the $350,000 Canuck Place 50/50 raffle jackpot in the fall. “So even if you don’t win a prize, you’ve still won because you’ve done something good for somebody else.”
For over 25 years, Canuck Place has been providing exceptional complex medical care, while helping children and families embrace living fully with the time they have left together. But not without donor support. That’s where your 50/50 ticket purchase can make a difference.
Canuck Place operates 13 patient beds and 8 family suites through two hospices in Vancouver and Abbotsford. Services include medical respite and family support, pain and symptom management, provincial 24-hour clinical care line, music and recreation therapy, education and art, grief, loss, and bereavement counselling, as well as end-of-life care. With donors, their talented team, including 400 energetic volunteers, they care for children with short lives and the families who love them.
Vancouverites will have two new locations to shop for fresh, local food this summer. Vancouver Farmers Markets – the non-profit organization that runs nine weekly markets throughout the city – will launch its new Downtown Farmers Market on Wednesday, June 2nd at šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square (Vancouver Art Gallery North Plaza) and False Creek Farmers Market on Thursday, June 3rd at Concord Community Park.
Vancouver Summer Farmers Markets 2021
“We’re thrilled to be adding new locations and new vendors to our market line-up this summer,” says Laura Smit, VFM’s Executive Director. “The addition of Downtown and False Creek will provide more options for people to shop in safe, outdoor settings, while offering additional sales opportunities to new and existing farms and producers.”
Riley Park
Saturdays
May 1-Oct 30
10am-2pm
30th Ave & Ontario St
Trout Lake
Saturdays
May 1-Oct 30
9am-2pm
Lakewood & E 13th Ave
Kitsilano
Sundays
May 2-Oct 31
9:30am-2:30pm
10th Ave. & Larch St
West End
Saturdays
May 22-Oct 30
9am-2pm
1100 Comox St
Mt. Pleasant
Sundays
May 23-Oct 31
10am-2pm
8th Ave. & Guelph St
Downtown
Wednesdays
June 2-Oct 6
2pm-6pm
750 Hornby St.
False Creek
Thursdays
June 3-Oct 7
2pm-6pm
50 Pacific Blvd
The two new markets will open just weeks after the launch of VFM’s summer season, which kicks off this weekend at Trout Lake Farmers Market and Riley Park Farmers Market on Saturday, May 1st, and Kitsilano Farmers Market on Sunday, May 2nd. Fans of the Kitsilano Market will have an additional hour to shop this season – the market will now run from 9:30am-2:30pm to help alleviate wait times experienced by shoppers last summer.
Shoppers should take note that Vancouver Farmers Markets continue to operate as essential services with full COVID-19 protocols in place, including physical distancing, limited shopper capacity, and no sampling or eating on site. VFM organizers ask that attendees follow the “Shop, don’t stop” protocol in effect at grocery stores and other businesses, and send only one member of their household to the market whenever possible.
This month features Mother’s Day, a holiday long weekend, and expanded outdoor activity options as we enjoy the peak of springtime on BC’s beautiful south coast. In May, Miss604 is proud to be a media sponsor of BC Youth Week (May 1-7), the Big Sisters GrapeJuice Wine Auction & Tasting (May 6) and Burnaby Village Museum (open May to September). Find these activities and more May events in Metro Vancouver – and the Fraser Valley – listed below:
Back in January, you were asked to nominate your favourite small businesses, and the support has been overwhelming for the Small Business BC Awards. They’re going to be hosting SBBC Awards Week May 3-6, 2021 to reveal the winners in each category every night for a weeklong celebration of entrepreneurship and resiliency.
Small Business BC Awards Week
With over 50,000 votes, 937 nominations, and an intense Dragon’s Den style pitching round, the top 5 finalists are ready to hear who has won, and so are all of us! Tickets for this multi-day extravaganza are free and you can tune in as much as you like throughout the week after you register once.
Each day, watch inspiring short films about each of the finalists; get to know the passion behind why they started their own business, the challenges they’ve overcome (including COVID-19) and why small businesses are so important to our province.
Day 1: Monday, May 3rd (6:00pm to 7:30pm)
Launch night! Meet the finalists, network for prizes, listen to a panel and hear from some special guests.
Day 2: Tuesday, May 4th (1:00pm to 1:40pm)
Watch the first of SBBC’s short films – as we get to know the finalists, hear their stories while the first two winners are announced:
The Awards week’s finale – featuring guest speakers: the Honourable Mélanie Joly, and the Honourable Ravi Kahlon, as the final two small business winners are revealed:
Best Innovation Award (sponsored by Western Economic Diversification Canada)
Nominees: CORE Landscape Products, Courtenay; MisMacK Clean Cosmetics, Canoe; Spirits of the West Coast Art Gallery, Courtenay; Big Bold Brand Inc., North Vancouver; Matidor, Vancouver
Premier’s People’s Choice Award (sponsored by the Province of British Columbia)
Get your free ticket here. I will update this post next week to highlight each of the winners. Thank you for supporting local this year, and hats off to these incredibly resilient entrepreneurs!
In celebration of its 20th anniversary, the DOXA Documentary Film Festival will be taking the show on the road, literally, with DOXA drive-in movies at the PNE grounds in May.
DOXA Drive-In Movies at the PNE
When: May 13-15, 2021 Where: PNE Amphitheatre Grounds Tickets: Purchase online in advance. Screenings will go ahead rain or shine, with tickets priced at $50 per carload, per film, and a limit of six passengers to a car. Guests are asked not to leave their vehicle during screenings except for restroom access, and strict COVID-19 health and safety protocols will be in place throughout the event to ensure the safety of attendees and staff.
This is DOXA’s most exciting innovation for 2021, and a chance for you and the members of your bubble to see a few of this year’s standout films in a venue where documentaries rarely make it onto the bill.
Thursday, May 13, 2021 5:30pm Dead Man’s Switch: a crypto mystery The 2018 death of Gerald Cotten, CEO of Canada’s largest Bitcoin exchange, reads like something out of a paperback mystery. When Cotten died suddenly in India at age 30, he took with him the secret to accessing $215 million in crypto-currency, setting off a mad search by reporters, regulators and former customers for the missing funds. What they uncovered only raised more questions, including the biggest one of all: Did Gerald Cotten really die, or did he fake his death and walk away with all the money?
9:00pm The Gig is Up Despite its utopian potential, the reality of the gig economy is something far less auspicious. Work conditions are frequently dangerous, pay often fluctuates with-out notice, and workers can effectively be fired at the push of a button. In The Gig is Up, Vancouver-based director Shannon Walsh offers an unflinching look at the impact gig work is having around the world. Spanning global networks from rural Florida to Lagos, Nigeria (with many ride shares and food services in between), gig workers of all backgrounds share their stories through candid interviews, while tech experts and academics provide critical commentary on an industry now worth over 5 trillion USD—and growing.
Friday, May 14, 2021 5:30pm Someone Like Me Tasked with a year-long commitment as Drake’s primary support network, a group of strangers from Vancouver’s queer community unite under the banner of Rainbow Refugee, a non-profit that connects LGBTQ+ asylum claimants with sponsors. In the months following Drake’s arrival from Uganda, facets of his turbulent experiences and day-to-day challenges begin to parallel those of certain group members: Marlon also moved cities in order to live his life openly as a gay Black man; David struggles to find job security after grad school; and Kay’s gender transition presents a long and emotional road to personal freedom.
9:00pm Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy Filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) invites viewers to witness the collective work of her community as it faces radical transformation. Surrounded by tall prairie grass gently swaying in the wind, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, a family doctor, community harm-reduction advocate, and Elle-Máijá’s mother, stands strong. She embraces the Blackfoot teaching of Kímmapiiyipitssini: “Kímmapiiyipitssini means compassion…” she says. “In our way of believing, if you help people out then you are blessed to continue to do that, and so our People are supposed to give what they have or what they can to help.”
Saturday, May 15, 2021 1:00pm In the Rumbling Belly of Motherland In the wake of recent news stories announcing the targeted assassination of female media workers in Afghanistan, In the Rumbling Belly of Motherland provides a sharp look into Zan TV, Kabul’s female-operated, female-oriented news agency. Filmmaker Brishkay Ahmed, herself a trained journalist with credits from Langara College and Simon Fraser University, returns to Afghanistan to document this simultaneously harrowing and inspiring work environment. The film’s intimate cinematography deftly yet quietly reveals the daily, sometimes deadly hurdles faced by Afghan reporters and media staff.
5:30pm FANNY: The Right to Rock Hard rock was on the rise in the late 60s, and Fanny, a California group that included Filipina-American sisters, impressed everyone with their heavy beats and blistering musical chops. They possessed musicianship, ambition and a major label record deal. So why did they end up on so many lists of the “best forgotten bands,” including that of David Bowie? FANNY: The Right to Rock tells the story of a 70s rock band like no other—all-female, with Asian-American and LGBTQ+ members—who struggled to overcome the limitations of an industry and a society hellbent on painting them into a hyper-sexualized corner.
9:00pm Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché Poly Styrene was the first Black woman in the UK to front a successful rock band. She introduced the world to a new sound of rebellion, using her unconventional voice to sing about identity, consumerism, postmodernism, and everything she saw unfolding in late 1970s Britain, with a rare prescience. As the frontwoman of X-Ray Spex, the Anglo-Somali musician was also a key inspiration for the riot grrrl and Afropunk movements. But the late punk maverick didn’t just leave behind an influential cultural footprint; she is survived by a daughter, Celeste Bell, who became the unwitting guardian of both her mother’s legacy and her demons. Misogyny, racism and mental illness plagued Poly’s life, while the lasting trauma scarred Celeste’s childhood and the pair’s relationship.
DOXA Documentary Film Festival
When: May 6-16, 2021 Where: Online Tickets: $7-10 sliding scale per individual virtual ticket; Early Bird Festival Passes: $60; Regular Festival Passes: $75; Anniversary Festival Pass + Package: $200
