Delivering The Celtic Connection in the Fraser Valley
JOANNE LONG has worked as a volunteer distributing papers throughout Mission and Abbotsford and beyond for many years.
By JOANNE LONG
In 1991, James (Jim) Carbin started to distribute The Celtic Connection. He delivered the papers in Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Mission and Abbotsford.
JOANNE LONG with Jim Carbin at a Feed the Hungry fundraising event at the Wolf & Hound in Vancouver in 2005.
James was a great ambassador for the paper. He would encourage anyone he met to take a copy of the paper. He left them in every restaurant and campsite we visited in our province and beyond.
Later, Bill Duncan from Maple Ridge helped to distribute them in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge, leaving James to continue doing it in Mission and Abbotsford.
Upon my retirement from teaching in 2008, we distributed the papers together until James passed away in 2013, and I carried on solo.
Bill Duncan still did this in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge until he became ill and my route expanded to all of the Fraser Valley.
On Saturdays, I often stopped to pick up the papers from Catholine and Tom Butler on my way home from the college.
This also gave me the opportunity to visit the Bill and Kareen Duncan to give them their papers.
When greyhound deliveries stopped, the papers would be delivered to the Duncan house in Maple Ridge and it was always a time for a cup of tea and a chat.
Bill, like James, was a great story teller, we had some great visits. Kareen and I continued to have our tea and chat after Bill passed away last year.
Throughout the years of distributing this paper I have had the opportunity to meet some fantastic people and I will miss connecting with them and every library in the Fraser Valley.