Canada’s Salvation Army testing out quicker tap-and-go option at kettle stations

Salvation Army testing tap-and-go donations

TORONTO - Canada's Salvation Army is testing out a new and faster way to allow cashless donations to its kettle stations via debit and credit card, making the process as quick and easy as dropping a toonie in the bubble.

A pilot project starting Dec. 1 will allow donations at some kettle stations in the Greater Toronto Area to be made through a new tap-and-go machine that eliminates having to swipe a card or enter a cash amount or PIN.

The machine will be mounted on the side of kettle stands and have three discs to tap — one for a $5 donation, another for $10 and another for $20.

Those wanting to donate more can tap a disc up to 10 times.

Artist’s inspired work brings Red River Métis story back to Portage and Main

Jennine Krauchi calls them the “grandmothers.” “They speak to you very silently. You never hear a word, but they speak,” Krauchi says, referring to the antique pieces of Métis needlework she’s carefully studied for years. But there are few precedents for her latest art project: a 85-foot-wide by 32-foot-high chain curtain of Métis needlework that drapes over the historic Bank of Montreal’s neoclassical facade.

Multiple factors add up to difficult harvest

Earlier this month, farmers sent agriculture publications some heartbreaking photos showing how heavy rains across the Prairies had pummelled a promising harvest.

An idled combine up to its axles in a flooded Saskatchewan field, straw bales surrounded by water and field equipment stranded on the far side of a washed-out section told the obvious story.

The Sept. 6-7 event was just the latest in a series of heavy rainfall events that have plagued this year’s growing season. Similar deluges hit different regions July 15-17, Aug. 14, and Aug. 31 — some of which were accompanied by tornadoes.

“What’s made this season challenging is the intensity of these rainfalls,” said Manitoba Agriculture ag meteorology specialist Alison Sass as she reviewed the summer’s weather patterns on an extension webinar.

Sunday-night auto aficionados work to steer away from unwelcome elements they say aren’t a part of their tradition

The red 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee out for a cruise on Portage Avenue draws admiring eyes from onlookers on a recent Sunday night, many of them seeing a specimen of the now-rare muscle car for the first time on a Winnipeg street. Or any other street, for that matter.

Longtime car enthusiast Bob Sudoma was behind the wheel, participating in the decades-old show-offy summer tradition.

The Sunday night cruise is built around a simple idea: proud car owners take their beloved vehicles for a spin to meet up with others of the same autophile ilk.

Less-fortunate appreciators, or just curious folks, also gather along the route to watch the highly-polished parade. Portage Avenue is one of cruise night’s best-known stretches.

Retired sportscaster Scott Oake determined as fundraising for women's addictions treatment facility enters home stretch

For now, the patch of land just east of the Victoria Hospital doesn’t look like much: just a field of rocks, mounded dirt, and concrete piles driven into the earth. Yet when Scott Oake looks over the site, he can already imagine how it will look in just over a year’s time, when the new Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre is expected to open.

It’s easier to picture this time around. In 2020, when the recently-retired CBC sportscaster and his late wife, Anne, were building their first labour of intermingled grief and love, the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre for men, it was hard for him to wrap his mind around how a raw construction site could transform into a welcoming addictions treatment facility.

When that centre opened in 2021, Oake found it looked “almost identical” to the architect’s renderings. So it’s easy to hope the Anne Oake Centre will be the same. It will be the first facility of its kind, its founders believe, not only in Canada but in North America: a place where 50 to 70 women can pursue sobriety while staying with their children.

“At Bruce Oake there’s a culture of love, and most of all a culture of hope,” Oake said, speaking at the site Thursday after a media conference to announce the final push of the centre’s fundraising campaign. “I can feel it every time I walk into that building. And I know it will be the same here.”