Month: July 2020

Another story reprising some of my favourites I covered for The Tri-City News during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What do you get when you cross classic sing-a-long tunes by the likes of The Beatles and Dinah Shore, with bad jokes gleaned from books bought from Value Village, as well as a little yoga instruction?

For Chris Ridout, the result is a winning afternoon in the sunshine putting smiles on the faces of seniors shut-in by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ridout has been teaching yoga for 10 years, after a long career teaching business to international students. His clients range from two- to 106-years-old, the latter amongst the several senior homes in the Tri-Cities he visits weekly where he helps keep them limber and teaches them breathing techniques to relax.

But with those facilities off-limits to outsiders during the pandemic to protect the health of residents, Ridout was out of work and the seniors he helped at loose ends.

So he improvised.

Working with management at the various homes on his circuit, Ridout came up with new ways to keep his sessions going, like leading classes from outside while the seniors followed along through the windows of a community room, or putting on personal protective equipment so he could carry on indoors.

Ridout, himself now a senior since he recently turned 65, said the outside connection he brings is important to the residents of facilities like Parkwood Manor in Coquitlam.

“It’s the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “It’s a reminder that this is not going to last forever.”

Last Thursday, on a bright, warm spring afternoon, staff at Parkwood placed a few dozen chairs in front of the building and helped others using walkers and wheelchairs take their places in the sunshine and shade for a special visit by their yoga minstrel.

With a guitar slung over his shoulder, a small amp at his feet and a bounce in his legs, Ridout greeted familiar faces from afar, then launched into an hour-long serenade of lively tunes like OblaDi, and Yellow Bird, sprinkled with liberal doses of groan-worthy jokes, some of them bordering on the risqué.

Some of the seniors attending Chris Ridout’s performane at Parkwood Manor in Coquitlam are more than 100 years old. Photo by MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Chris Ridout sings old favourites for the seniors at Parkwood Manor in Coquitlam. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

A sing-a-long session at Parkwood Manor ends with an ice cream treat for everyone. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Chris Ridout teaches yoga and conducts a sing-a-long at Parkwood Manor in Coquitlam last Thursday. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

The bright sunshine means hats are the order of the day for seniors at Parkwood Manor. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Chris Ridout said his sing-a-long yoga sessions at Tri-City seniors homes are all about bringing out the smiles. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

A well-worn page of lyrics. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Chris Ridout often conducts his yoga and sing-a-long sessions for seniors from outside the common area at Parkwood Manor in Coquitlam. But last Thursday’s warm weather brought everyone outside. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Chris Ridout waves to his fans and friends as he arrives to conduct a sing-a-long and yoga at Coquitlam’s Parkwood Manor. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

Chris Ridout reminds a couple of admirers of his yoga sing-a-longs to keep their distance. Photograph By MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS

“I like to treat them like the adults they are,” Ridout said.

Many of the approximately 50 seniors sang along, some clapped, a few just dozed in the warm sun, their faces protected by wide-brimmed sombreros supplied by staff. In between sets, Ridout reminds them of the breathing techniques he’d previously taught to help ease their anxieties.

And when the show was over, everyone got an ice cream treat.

It was, Ridout said, like spending the afternoon with old friends.

This is part of a series reprising some of the stories I’ve covered for The Tri-City News during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As some summer youth basketball programs struggle to find a way to operate amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Coquitlam’s Panther Hoops is taking it to the streets — or, more specifically, the parking lot — thanks to the collective effort of some volunteer parents.

Shut out of school gyms and community centres that are mostly still closed, and loathe to overstay its welcome at some outdoor facilities like Port Coquitlam’s Evergreen Park, Panther Hoops’ head coach Doug Dowell said the program needed a more permanent solution to make its plans to put on a full schedule of summer camps viable and sustainable.

“The pressure was on us to find a place we could call our own.”

That’s when several parents decided if they built it, the kids could play.

Over the course of a rainy weekend in June, when pretty much every weekend was damp, they cleaned up detritus from the parking lot behind BC Christian Academy where the program is based, bored deep holes into the pavement, assembled four full-sized basketball nets with glass backboards and poured concrete to lock them in place. A welder was brought in to add another level of security.

The result is an urban playground worthy of a Woody Harrelson streetball movie, set against a backdrop of an auto repair shop, crooked fibreboard fencing and stacks of shipping containers.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS A player at one of the Panther Hoops basketball camps goes for a layup on makeshift courts prepared by parent volunteers in the back parking lot of BC Christian Academy in Coquitlam.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Domenico Petroziello gets set for shot at Panther Hoops basketball camp, which is being held outdoors on a parking lot as most gyms and community centres are still closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS David Mutabzi, right, works with one of his young charges, Skyler Nuestro, at Panther Hoops basketball camp.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Will Patterson works on an agility drill at Panther Hoops basketball camp that is being held on makeshift courts assembled in the back parking lot of BC Christian Academy in Coquitlam.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Stacks of shipping containers, and crooked fibreboard fencing are the backdrop for makeshift basketball courts constructed in a parking lot behind BC Christian Academy so Panther Hoops could conduct its summer youth camps.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Panther Hoops instructor Jakob Current drives to the basket at the urban outdoor courtyard behind BC Christian Academy in Coquitlam.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Instructor Jakob Current keeps an eye on his group at Panther Hoops basketball day camp.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS A player at Panther Hoops basketball camp dribbles his way around pylons. To keep space between the young athletes, the emphasis is on individual skill development.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS A basketball court built on a parking lot presents unique challenges like broken and uneven payment as well as overgrown weeds.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS A crooked fibreboard wall, an overgrown gully and a rusted, broken chainlink fence are the backdrop to one of the outdoor basketball courts installed in a parking lot behind BC Christain Academy in Coquitlam.

More importantly, Dowell said, the makeshift courts have allowed Panther Hoops to offer co-ed day camps for players aged 7 to 16, and evening camps three times a week for more experienced high school players.

Dowell said the camps are an important element of Panther Hoops’ broadened mandate to serve the wider community after it started 13 years ago as a prep program at BC Christian to develop elite players who could contend for post-secondary scholarship opportunities.

The public health emergency threatened to derail that progress.

Dowell said he quickly recognized moving outdoors was the solution.

“With this whole COVID thing, people are on the edge,” he said. “We wanted to get the kids out the door.”

With no gym at BC Christian, Panther Hoops has always led a nomadic existence, so it ventured as far as Pitt Meadows to find open-air facilities it could use for small groups of kids working on their individual skills.

Dowell said one of the biggest challenges was getting his staff of experienced coaches that includes longtime high school coach Rich Goulet, former Cape Breton University bench boss David Petroziello, and former Pitt Meadows Marauders star player Scott Walton, to deconstruct routines they’ve run for years and reassemble them as individual drills that don’t require sharing the ball or close-quarters defence.

He said the exercise has been refreshing.

“In a way, it’s helped us realign ourselves.”

The end result, Dowell said, is a more innovative, free-form approach to basketball, more akin to creative streetball than the regimented strategies and patterns of the sport when it’s played in the gym and a final score matters.

“It’s made you get more into the ingenuity,” Dowell said. “It’s a missing part of the game.”

The weekly camps, that run through to the end of August, have full safety procedures in place, like a staged entrance to the outdoor facility after each participant has answered a health questionnaire, had their temperature checked as well as recorded, and their hands sanitized. Players must also bring their own ball which can be used only by them exclusively, although it’s also wiped down frequently during sessions and before they head home for the day.

And while the outdoor venue means the odd session may get washed away, the kids don’t lose out, as each is issued a punch card so a missed day can be made up as part of another camp.

Dowell said their summer of survival is actually allowing the program to thrive.

“True growth in the sport will only happen when you think outside the box,” he said.

Or in the case of Panther Hoops, outside the gym.

This is a part of a series reprising stories I covered during the COVID-19 pandemic for The Tri-City News.

What started as a little activity to draw chalk rainbows on the pavement has transformed a Port Moody neighbourhood into a gallery of giant colourful murals that is bringing people together and lifting spirits during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Ladawne Shelstad said she was going through a rough emotional patch early in the pandemic when her six-year-old daughter, Maddyn, suggested they create rainbows on the road in front of their Klahanie townhouse.

“They’re a symbol of hope,” Maddyn said.

Working together, Shelstad found the mother and daughter project soothed her anxiety. It also fired her creativity. So they extended their effort to their garage door, decorating it with a giant heart.

When Shelstad discovered one of her neighbours was a nurse, she doodled on paper a design for a mural of thanks she could chalk on her garage door.

A project manager in the communications industry who’d taken some art courses “years ago,” Shelstad found inspiration in stained glass windows. Using tape and a little elbow grease to get the wooden doors clean of dust and grime so the chalk could adhere, she and Maddyn did one mural, and then another as neighbours enquired whether their garages could be included in the project as well. A donation of chalk helped push them along.

Shelstad said the one to eight hours she spent working on each mural were “completely uplifting.” She met some neighbours for the first time, learned about their own interests and challenges navigating the pandemic. Three of them are health care workers, she discovered, along with a teacher who’s coping with doing her job from home, and even some people who’ve lost their job.

“We’re all part of the same thing,” she said. “We’re in this together, but apart.”
Other neighbours enquired about designing their own murals.

Before long every garage door in Shelstad’s lane had been decorated and the gallery has even extended to other lanes in the complex, some fences and the brick rostrum at the entrance to their street.

Shelstad said the project has showed her the power creativity can have to help people get through tough times. So others can explore the healing salve of their own expression, she’s also assembled kits of chalk and art supplies, with proceeds going to Share family and community services.

“You find what gives you joy,” she said. “The whole neighbourhood has embraced something. We’ve been in this glorious bubble of positivity.”

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Erica Eghtsad and her daughter, Amelia, show off the chalk mural Ladawne Shelstad designed for their garage door in Port Moody’s Klahanie neighbourhood.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Ladawne Shelstad poses with one of her first “interactive” chalk murals she’s created for garage doors in her Klahanie neighbourhood in Port Moody to help brighten spirit during the COVID-19 lockdown.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS A detail from one of the chalk murals Ladawne Shelstad created for garage doors in her Klahanie neighbourhood in Port Moody to help brighten spirits and keep herself and her six-year-old daughter, Maddyn, occupied during the COVID-19 lockdown.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Ladawne Shelstad and her daughter, Maddyn, 6, show off two of the chalk murals they designed and coloured on garage doors in their Klahanie neighbourhood to help brighten spirits during the COVID-19 lockdown. Their effort also inspired other neighbours to commission murals or design their own for their garage doors so now there’s more than a dozen completed.

MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS Even the bricks at the entrance to Ladawne Shelstad’s lane in the Klahanie neighbourhood have been chalked to create a colourful entrance to the gallery of garage doors decorated with chalk murals she designed, along with some of her neighbours.