National Volunteer Week: Lucknow's Cooper wants to know your name
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
Whether locally born and raised, or new in town, anybody residing in plucky little Lucknow these days can count themselves lucky to live in a spot that’s chock full of top-notch volunteer spirit.
There is the incomparable Kinsmen Club of Lucknow and District, who transform an old cow pasture into a massive country music festival every year using little more than a whole lot of teamwork and a little bit of fence. There’s also a dedicated network of volunteers who’ve been developing alternative methods of ensuring locals have access to affordable, healthy food since the town grocery store shut down in 2016. The Lucknow Fall Fair has been running strong on volunteer power for over 160 years now, while the Horticultural Society beautifies the town’s public spaces with its annual flower plantings. And that’s just the tip of the Lucknow love iceberg!
While everyone who donates their time to make Lucknow a little lovelier deserves to have the spotlight shone on them, there’s one creative collaborator in the mix that you can’t help but notice - mostly because she seems to be anywhere and everywhere in town that might need a hand!
Lucknow native Corrie Cooper wears her local pride on her sleeve, and was more than happy to take a moment out of her afternoon to talk about all the things she loves about contributing to her community. She even loves the area’s weather, in all its forms. Even on a day that’s chilly enough to make most people hurry from the safety of their warm car to the safety of their heated home, Cooper can be found outdoors, hanging out in lawn chairs relishing the last morsels of winter with her next door neighbour, Debra Porter.
Cooper is quick to admit she might have a bit of a biased perspective when it comes to her hometown. “I know every small town around here has great volunteers, but I just think that volunteering in Lucknow is really, really strong,” she confessed.
Porter can offer a firsthand account of what it’s like to live so close to pure, unadulterated localized enthusiasm. When she moved from Toronto to Lucknow a few years ago, it didn’t take long for Cooper’s enthusiasm to have an effect on her. “Corrie has a way of rallying her community to get involved. She’s like a walking billboard. I work nights in nursing, and I didn’t think that I had time to do anything, but she finds a way for me to have time. She’s amazing! And when she’s not volunteering, she’s advocating for the things going on in the town. They were looking for artists to paint the fire hydrants all over town, and she got me to do it. If it wasn’t for Corrie, I would never have applied. She’s our cheerleader!” Cooper chimed in to remind Porter that one of her hydrant designs actually won the competition. The two teamed up last year to be tough but fair judges of the pedestrian entries of the Lucknow Fall Fair parade.
Cooper works at the local library, which allows her to encounter a wide swath of Huron-Kinloss residents every day, every one of whom has the potential to awaken their latent volunteer spirit, with some gentle nudging. “I’m just thankful for the job I have”, Cooper remarked.
She’s also part of the local branch of food security initiative The Good Food Box. “Community members can pay $22, and they get 10 to 12 items in a box. It’s basically bulk buying. We have a gentleman who purchases for us, and everything goes to the church, and about 29 volunteers come together and we take like, a 50-pound bag of potatoes, create an assembly line, and make up the boxes. It’s good stuff, and it’s so much fun to watch all our volunteers! The other day I just stood back and watched for a minute, and all I saw was community.”
She’s also a talented photographer, which has created some interesting opportunities for her in town. “In 2009, I was approached by one of the Kinsmen,” she said, “and he asked me to take photos for Music in the Fields - I had no idea what he was talking about. And then for seven years I documented the whole event and did the ‘Meet and Greet’ photos. Those Kinsmen, man - those guys work hard! It started as a one-day event, then it became a two-day event, then it had to move to the new field, because it just kept getting bigger.”
Cooper and her children, Monique and Liam, are also active members of the Lucknow Horticultural Society (LHS), which tends to the flora outside of the arena, local businesses and Waterworks Park. They also curate the bountiful boxes of blooms that can be found on most of the town’s bridges. “Every year we choose a theme - this year, it’s ‘Orange’,” she confided. “We have a local person we get all our flowers from. We all look through a book and choose plants that will stand up well, and be hardy, and then our Flower Committee makes the final selection, and then they grow all summer.” The LHS has raised money to support its downtown beautification efforts in a variety of ways over the years, but its current preferred form of fundraising is the perennially popular community breakfast at the arena. “It’s just a way to bring the community together. And do a bit of fundraising.”
When she was growing up, Cooper’s father ran his own butcher shop on Campbell Street, and worked hard to be an active member of the community. Cooper learned from his example, and works to pass those same values on to her own children. “I think the biggest thing I learned from him is that you do business and you do life, and everything else, in the place where you live. I love that my roots are here. There is so much value in younger people learning from people that are older than them. I just think that when you work together in the community, it doesn’t matter who you are - everyone can offer something, however they can help. I just love seeing all generations and ages of people working together, having friends across the board. To still be able to walk downtown and know the names of the people on the street - I want to do that with my kids.”