Chapeau

Robert Chartrand Memorial Tournament gives $45K to local recreation orgs

Sarah Pledge Dickson, LJI Journalist

On Jan. 1, Jean-Marc Chartrand celebrated the birthday of his late brother Robert Chartrand by announcing how much money was raised from the second annual Robert Chartrand Memorial Tournament, held last October, and where the money was donated.

Chartrand said that after the ball tournament in the fall, they began presenting cheques to community organizations ranging from $2,000 to $10,000. In total, the fundraiser brought in $45,000 which is $5,000 more than last year’s tournament.

The tournament was first organized to honour Robert, a young Chapeau resident who passed away tragically in 2021 after his snowmobile went through the ice on the Ottawa River.

The funds from this year’s tournament were distributed to various youth sports and recreation organizations, something Chartrand said is to honour his brother.

“My brother was so involved in kid’s sports,” Chartrand said. “We’re trying to keep a little bit of what he loved doing going forward.”

Karie Bissonnette is the president of the Chapeau Recreation Association, which received a donation of $5,000 from the memorial tournament fundraiser.

She said that this money will be used to improve the infrastructure at the RA, including improvements to the drainage system, the installation of an outdoor pavilion, restoration of the soccer field, netting for the baseball field and a walking trail to connect all the areas together.

“The funding received from the Robert Chartrand Memorial Tournament is very appreciated because it gets us closer to achieving our goals,” Bissonnette said.

“The baseball part of the tournament takes place on RA property and it makes us proud to be a part of it. It brings the community together to support a cause that we value as well, while remembering and honouring Robert for his involvement in the community.”

The rest of the money raised was given to Upper Pontiac Sports Complex ($10,000), the Waltham RA ($5,000), Les maisons des jeunes du Pontiac ($5,000), Chapeau Minor Hockey ($5,000), Ottawa Valley District Girls Hockey Association ($5,000), the Fort Coulonge arena ($5,000), the Upper Ottawa Valley Little League ($3,000) and the Chapeau Karate Club ($2,000).

The tournament organizers decided to wait until after all the donations had been given out to announce the recipients, a moment which just so happened to coincide with Robert’s birthday.

“We’ve already begun planning for next year,” Chartrand said. “Hopefully it could be better and bigger than it was this year.”

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Kendyl Smith-Trimm Caring for Kids Endowment Fund signed at Chapeau fundraiser

Sarah Pledge Dickson, LJI Journalist

Cheryl Smith and husband Pat Trimm made official the Kendyl Smith-Trimm Caring for Kids Endowment Fund on Saturday night at a fundraiser event in Chapeau in memory of their adopted daughter, who passed away of cancer last year.

Megan Doyle and Tatyana Awada, representatives from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) were in attendance for the signing of the documents, and expressed their gratitude for the Smith-Trimm family who are starting this fund.

Smith said the support from CHEO throughout Kendyl’s care was incredible, and that it continued as they fundraised for this endowment fund, which is why they want to raise money for the institution.

“The care that Kendyl received at CHEO was second to none,” said Smith. “The staff we encountered, each and every one of them, were exceptional human beings.”

The money raised will go toward supporting families and children battling childhood cancer.

Months of fundraising all culminated in an evening of celebration for Smith-Trimm, who passed away following a battle with cancer in Aug. 2023 at eight years old. Smith-Trimm was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, in Feb. 2022 and underwent 10 weeks of chemotherapy.

At the event, guests were treated to a late dinner and snacks, and had the opportunity to purchase raffle tickets for items donated from the community, including a kids’ car, a variety of cooking spices and accessories, gifts from local artists, and a large cooler full of beverages for a door prize.

The evening was full of live music, including the opening song, one of Kendyl’s favourite tunes by the Beatles, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

“Although Kendyl’s physical presence is not here with us this evening, her spirit can be felt in this building tonight,” said Smith.

Smith invited the guests to the dance floor to participate in something Kendyl loved: a dance party to the lyrics of her favourite song.

“Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, La-la, how their life goes on.”

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Family to hold CHEO fundraiser in memory of late daughter

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

Kendyl Smith-Trimm was about as happy as a kid can get.

Her curly blonde hair and smile could always light up a room, said her mom, Cheryl Smith.

Kendyl was curious and loved adventures, especially at their family cottage. The young girl loved exploring the shoreline and finding rocks and other treasures along the way.

She loved animals of all shapes and sizes, whether it was their family dog, the cows on her uncle’s farm in Chichester, or the cat she convinced her parents to get.

But in Feb. 2022 seven-year old Kendyl started having sporadic soreness in her leg. At first, her parents thought it was just growing pains, but after getting a referral to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) they discovered it was actually something far more severe: osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.

After a long battle with the disease, Kendyl passed away in August of 2023. Now, her family is holding a fundraiser in their late daughter’s memory, hoping to help kids in similar situations.

Once they discovered the cancer in Kendyl’s leg, they started her on chemotherapy at CHEO.

During that time, her parents had to tell their little girl that her thick, curly blonde hair would likely fall out due to the powerful chemotherapy medicines.

“Your heart broke to have to tell her that, but she took it well,” said Smith.

Kendyl handled the situation with her trademark brand of creativity and humour.

“We had to cut a lot of it off, and she took her hair and she made this hairball out of it. And she put googly eyes and a smile and said, ‘meet Harry, my hairball.’ That was her way of coping with it.”

After 10 weeks of chemotherapy, they hoped the tumour in her leg would have gotten smaller. To their dismay, the tumour had actually grown in size, and Kendyl had grown two additional tumours, one under each shoulder.

The family tried putting their daughter on another round of chemotherapy, an experimental drug, even an oral version of chemotherapy — whatever they could do to slow this thing down.

But there still wasn’t any improvement. Slowly, they realized there was no stopping it. The cancer was taking over her body.

After all this treatment, Kendyl needed a break, so the family took a vacation to southern Ontario to see family and visit Niagara Falls.

When they returned home, the focus was on minimizing the pain as much as possible. Kendyl spent a week in a hospice before returning home, where a nurse came to take care of her, with help from her family and CHEO palliative care doctors, until her final days.

Kendyl passed away on Aug. 14, 2023 at the age of 8.

Even through all the pain, her mom said Kendyl showed remarkable selflessness.

“I want to open a toy store when I grow up,” she said on a trip back home from CHEO one day.

“And all the money I make, I’m going to give it back to CHEO, because those kids need money to get better.”

Smith said this generosity represents exactly who Kendyl was.

“If we went out to Walmart for something, she would want to buy someone else something [ . . . ]
She was a very, very thoughtful and caring child.”

Now, Kendyl’s family is organizing this fundraiser to honour their daughter and continue her legacy.

“She is the inspiration behind it and we’re kind of just following through on what we feel she wanted,” said Smith.

The money raised will go toward an endowment fund at CHEO to help children and families in need, whether it be for transportation, food, lodging, or even just a toy.

With some of the money, the family wants to buy gift cards from the CHEO gift shop, as a way to keep the kids’ focus away from the medical procedures.

Smith said Kendyl always looked forward to getting toys from the gift shop. Over time, she amassed quite an extensive collection of fuzzy sloths, even putting on an entire sloth wedding in their living room.

“It really helped her to focus on something more positive rather than focusing on getting blood work done, the needle and all that,” she said.

Now, her family hopes to do the same thing for other kids.

Half of the money raised will go toward the Child Life program at CHEO, a program that strives to make childrens’ experiences at the hospital as positive as possible, and one that Kendyl herself benefitted from.

“They build these really trusting relationships with the kids. If they have to go in for bloodwork, one of the Child Life workers will go in as well, and they’ll have an iPad to look at,” said Smith.

“It’s a very healthy distraction, but it just takes a lot of the child’s mind off of the very intrusive medical procedures they’re having. She loved it [ . . . ] It’s a very, very important program.”

Smith has been canvassing businesses in Ontario and Quebec for donations, and has had great success, receiving thousands of dollars of money and merchandise for the cause.

But some days, the prospect of going out and talking about her daughter is simply too much, and she doesn’t want to go. But then she thinks of her daughter, and she forces herself to get out there.

“In the back of my head, Kendyl didn’t want to go to CHEO, get picked and prodded either, but she did,” Smith tells herself.

“So get your ass off the couch, you’re going. She’s inspired me with her strength and courage. And she was so generous and giving.”

Smith has been amazed by the community support.

“Like, we have got monetary donations to help cover costs of the event, we’ve gotten so many gift certificates from local businesses,” she said.

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Chapeau celebrates opening of new farmers market building

Leiya Fischer, LJI Reporter

The Chapeau Agricultural Society hosted the official opening of its new farmers market building on Thursday afternoon with live music, refreshments, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by society members and mayors of the upper Pontiac region.

“This sort of solidifies the agricultural society to still be operating and supporting the agriculture that we have around here,” said Gene O’Brien, president of the agricultural society, noting the society was founded in 1879.

The building has been hosting market vendors three days a week since early June, but Thursday’s event offered an opportunity for the community and all those involved in bringing the building to life to celebrate the accomplishment together. “We’re seeing so many people who live on the island that I didn’t even know live here. It’s really being well supported,” O’Brien said, describing the success of the market building so far. “One thing we’ve learned is people do want to support local, they do want to buy local.”

She said the project broke ground last August, and a year later, the building is up and running, hosting a bustling market and showcasing local producers. Various items and agricultural products were being sold by vendors from many places, such as jewelry, lemonade, tomatoes, ice cream, plants, and so much more.

The market building will be open every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, even during the winter, when the community will be able to use it as a place to warm up. The construction of the building was made possible thanks to federal and provincial grants, as well as funding from Desjardins bank. MRC Pontiac awarded a provincial revitalization grant (FRR2) to the project.

“It really is a project that brings the community together, it supports local producers, and it’s a venue for the community itself,” said Shanna Armstrong, economic development officer for agriculture at the MRC. “This gives [producers] a space that they can market year-round. It also becomes a central focal point that you can draw people to. Tons of people are coming from Pembroke and Petawawa to the market now.”

At 3 p.m. everyone gathered around for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and for some speeches by the people who helped make this farmers market come to life.

“It provides a space for community engagement, acting like a social hub where like-minded people can network and foster a sense of belonging,” said Allumette Island mayor Corey Spence, also noting the economic and educational value this new building brings to the community. “In short, this farmers market is a vital addition to building a vibrant, resilient, and interconnected community,” Spence concluded.

For more on the vision for this new farmers market building, see our story “Chapeau market building opens ahead of schedule,” published June 18.

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