There’s an empty storefront at the end of the Campbell River Commons mall with a wooden floor and a wall filled mostly with mirrors.
Although it’s the furthest space from the Campbell River Seniors’ Centre that’s still inside the mall itself, they use it for some of their programming. On Monday afternoon, however, it was filled by Samantha Hubbard and the ladies from Industry Hair and Body Care who brought their chairs, tables, clippers, scissors, nail polishes and other equipment over to pamper some of the seniors for free.
“A lot of seniors can’t afford to go get their hair done or get a manicure, so this is a really special treat for them,” says Linda Tucker, who currently serves as the activities director for the Seniors’ Centre Society. “We had such a big response that I had to draw names to see who would get a spot, because there were just too many who wanted one, and I wanted it to be fair.”
Lauren Rice, who is in charge of this initiative and other outreach projects for Industry, says she’s excited about this particular program, which they are calling, “Industry Takeover.”
“The community has given us so much support over the past few years that we really just wanted to show our appreciation for that and give something back,” Rice says. “We love where we live and the people who live here.”
Hubbard says they plan on trying to arrange for these “takeovers” with as many organizations as possible – “hopefully about once a month for any business with a charity base that wants to celebrate its staff or the people they serve.”
So how did they settle on the Seniors’ Centre for the first one?
“We were looking at seniors homes and that kind of thing,” Rice says, “but we didn’t want to take anything away from anybody who may already be going into those places and doing this type of thing, so when we thought of the Seniors’ Centre, we thought it would be the perfect place to come, because we can offer it to a huge range of people from right across Campbell River.”
Tucker says the use of the space at the end of the mall the Industry ladies have taken over for the day is one area she’d like to see expand, so when Rice suggested this takeover, she was more than happy to welcome them.
The room is currently only utilized three mornings per week, so there are two more mornings and five afternoons where it sits empty.
“This room only gets used for line dancing and yoga, so I’m trying to get different things in here to use the room, and so when this was offered, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do just that,” Tucker says.
As far as what’s next for the Industry ladies, Rice says they’ve got some ideas, but they’re looking for more.
“We want to try and do something for different areas of the community over the next few months,” Rice says. “I mean, sometimes it gets a bit crazy busy at the salon in the summer, but we still want to give back as much as we can, so we want to look at different ideas about what we can do to reach out and give back.
“We’ve got some really exciting ideas that we’ve been thinking about,” she continues, “but we’re not letting them out of the bag just yet,” she says with a laugh, although she hints that one of them will likely surround breast cancer awareness month in October. Anyone with an idea for increasing the seniors’ programming by making use of that extra room in the mall near the centre can contact Tucker by calling the Seniors’ Centre at 250-914-4401 or by emailing office@crseniors.com. And anyone with ideas for organizations or societies that Hubbard or Rice can contact about bringing the Industry ladies in for an outreach beautification session can contact them through their Facebook page.