Photo by Lindsay Ducharme
Teresa Petriw and Janet Thompson hold the first prize in the Lethbridge Festival of Quilts raffle. The biennial quilt festival will take place June 14-15 at the Lethbridge College gymnasium.

Teresa Petriw’s passion for quilting began 25 years ago after enrolling in a class when her daughter was a baby. What started out as a hobby, a way to get out of the house and meet people, has turned into a self-described “addiction.”
Janet Thompson shares a similar story; her foray into the quilting world was spurred by her love of sewing and an attempt to find a new hobby.
“About a year before I was to retire my daughter told me I better get a hobby or I would drive her father crazy. Because I liked sewing I thought maybe quilting would be a good fit,” she described.
The rest, as they say, is history.

Lethbridge Herald file photo by David Rossiter
Safety City board member Patti Caven gives riding instructions to Calvin Low, 5, during a Safety City Family Fun Day in June 2012 at the facility north of Exhibition Park.

Keeping children safe is a universal concern. No organization takes childhood safety more seriously than Safety City, an agency dedicated to educating children and adults on childhood safety issues.
For almost 18 years Lethbridge residents have been accessing vital programming from Safety City. The agency’s long run almost came to an abrupt halt in 2012 due to difficulties securing funding. However, in January 2013, Exhibition Park officially stepped in and took over the reins, ensuring generations of children to come will continue to receive safety education.

Photo by Lindsay Ducharme
From left, Diane Muma, Vedna McGill and Brenda Hill are all involved with the annual Investors Group Memory Walk in support of the Alzheimer Society.

Diane Muma had been dreaming about her retirement for years. Muma and her husband had planned and saved, fantasized and debated where to travel during their golden years. All their dreams were dashed, however, when her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when he was only 57 years old.
“When he retired he started losing interest in what he was doing. There was some inability for him to fix things; he was my ‘Mr. Fix-It,’ and we just saw changes in his behaviour,” Muma said in describing his early symptoms.
“We went to the doctor to try to get the bottom of it. The doctor was reluctant to diagnose him. He said he was depressed because of his age; he didn’t really look at anything else. In my heart I kind of knew what it was because of the symptoms. We persevered and we finally got him diagnosed;. He was 57, but he was already fairly well into the disease; he was probably mid-stage.”

Photo by Lindsay Ducharme
Danielle McIntyre, executive director of the Interfaith Food Bank, is gearing up for the annual Target Hunger campaign that will benefit local food banks.

Lethbridge residents, prepare to see yellow. The Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder-day Saints (LDS) is gearing up for its annual Target Hunger campaign. The program is a citywide food drive which benefits both the Interfaith Food Bank and the Lethbridge Food Bank Society.
“Target Hunger was initially started by the LDS church and now a lot of other organizations, groups, churches, businesses, etcetera have all hopped on board with this mission,” explained Tonya Woolford, executive director of the Lethbridge Food Bank Society.