Volunteers believe that their status as volunteers they did not have to comply with work place behaviour that would be expected and required else where in British Columbia.

This HR Company hired by the Board of Directors of the Delta Hospital Auxiliary states THE THRIFT SHOP environment tolerates acute psychological harm, overt harassment, and discriminatory behaviour. Cited behaviours include target bullying, identity based harassment, public humiliation and slander.

The report says there were workplace threats and insubordination including ignoring policies and passive-aggressive resistance to direction. More extreme examples include threats of violence and verbal abuse.

Many of the volunteers in our THRIFT SHOP are retirees. Many of these volunteers have their twenty or thirty year pins of service. Several of us are in our 90’s. I am one of them. As seniors we are very aware of our vulnerability, Do you think that any one of us would work in the environment I have just described. Not one single volunteer would tolerate it.

The Board of Directors is threatening the very existence of THE THRIFT SHOP as we know it. What is happening is a power play. A hostile takeover by individuals to take control of our beloved THRIFT SHOP. They want the power to operate THE THRIFT SHOP their way. To increase prices. To bring in paid staff.

They locked our volunteers out. They changed the keys. They suspended our Coordinator and besmirched her reputation with innuendos. They made degrading accusations to volunteers. They will turn The THRIFT SHOP, the heart and soul of our community, into a sterile version of Value Village.

We are fighting for the existence of THE DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY THRIFT SHOP. The community supports us.

 Here is the question DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY are asking. Why would they be threatened with “consequences” and what would the “consequences” be. A deduction from their pay envelop? They don’t get paid. Would it be no holiday benefits? Not those either. Dismissal from volunteer work and not be allowed to entire the Thrift Shop as a customer? Now that can happen!

It is not pleasant when you are a volunteer to be threatened with ‘”THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR POLICY VIOLATIONS”. Volunteers are part of this community. When you threaten volunteers you threaten the community. The community has come to consider THE THRIFT SHOP their thrift shop. They appreciate the THRIFT SHOP ‘s reasonable price system in these economic times. The community donates to THRIFT SHOP. The community shops there. The community works there.

THE DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY THRIFT Shop’s enormous success relates directly to this community of volunteers. As a community they have worked together in a positive atmosphere to make their THRIFT SHOP the most successful hospital thrift shop in British Columbia.

“Happiness . . .

not in another place but this place,

not for another hour

but this hour.”

I walk to the garden past hedges heavy with fragrant with wild roses and awash with cow parsley. Blackbirds, wrens, robins and song thrushes fill the air with glorious song. The early morning sun catches glittering drops of dew suspended in fragile spiderwebs turning grass into a field of diamonds. A walk of happiness to the garden to gather rhubarb.

This Rhubarb cake is one you make with pleasurable ease. The tactile pleasure of combining the crumble by hand. The lemony perfume of adding the sumac. The sharp tang of grating the lemon into brown sugar then rubbing the zest through the sugar with your finger tips. A whip of eggs. An easy pour of melted butter. A gently folding of flour and a delicate hand with the rhubarb. All is happiness in this hour.

This is a cake that sits often under a glass dome in my kitchen. As the season changes the cake takes on a different persona. Sometimes chopped pears with a dash of almond flavouring. The stone fruit comes into season I add peaches, apricots or deep purple plums and serve the cake with whipped cream. Apples and cinnamon cake generously presented with a wedge of crumbly wedge of old cheddar cheese; the flavour of autumn.

“Happiness . . . not in another place, but this place, not for another hour, but this hour.” (Walt Whitman)

The printable recipe resides in the kitchen of MRS.BUTTERFINGERS.

Bon Appetit my dear friends.

The following words are excerpts from a blog I published five years ago. It demonstrates one of the many reasons the DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY THRIFT SHOP is much loved in the community.

“The out-grown, we don’t love them any more, cast-off toys find their way to a shop in a small village. There the shelves are carefully filled with toys. Baby face dolls and elegant Barbies. Trucks and rocket ships. Plush hug-able dogs and bears. Game and puzzles and building blocks. They tumble into the imagination of children asking to be taken home and loved again.

This is where I found my doll house. The shop that takes in these forgotten toys is Delta Hospital Auxiliary Thrift Shop. The village is Ladner, British Columbia. Caring volunteers sort, tidy, carefully display, and quite frequently fall in love with these not quite new toys. I am one of the volunteers who fell in love with a shabby doll house and took it home

Very few thrift shops carry a large inventory of children’s toy. They are not high profit items. In our thrift shop we understand the importance of the joy a small toy brings to a child. Happiness can not be measured in dollars and cents. We volunteers sort the donated toys. Tidy the dolls. Fluff up the ears on the stuffed bunnies and set happiness on the shelves.

This little Thrift Shop. In this little village. This is my happy place. As one grows older, ones friends slip away. It is not always easy to meet new people. Volunteering in the Thrift shop has changed that.

As for my thrift shop doll house. It just needed a little loving and white paint to become a Christmas dollhouse. A doll house keeps Christmas the year round.

They grow wild here on our West Coast.   Flinging themselves with outrageous abandon along side country roads and busy highways.  They cover hillsides with their brilliant colours.   Magnificent  spires of unbelievable beauty.  The fabulous.  The fantastic.   The outrageous too-good-to-be-true  Foxglove.

They grow tame in my garden.  No wild adventure for these towering, glorious foxgloves.  Imperiously they rule my spring garden.   High and haughty  above cornflowers and poppies.  Ignoring purple irises and  pansies.  Tall and slender they weave back and forth waltzing to the slightest breeze.

It’s early morning.  The dew caught like diamonds in spider webs woven across the lawn.  I have a deep bucket filled with warm water.  Wearing gardening gloves  I cut  and strip the lower leave from the foxgloves,  and immediately dunk them in the bucket.    I let the foxgloves drowse away the morning hours in the cool, dark boot room.  The plants are slightly toxic so I wash my hands after handling them.

A  stunning  bouquet of foxgloves.   A spectacular statement of our connection to all things green and growing   This bringing the outdoors into your home is a simple pleasure.      Isn’t that what life should be about?

DIGITALIS PURPUREA (aka foxgloves)  have a vase life of up to 2 weeks.   Florists supply you with a sachet of plant food.  It is easy to make up your own plant food.

1 quart of water, 2 tablespoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon sugar and three or four drops of bleach.  Give it a stir before adding the flowers.  The bleach and vinegar reduce the chance of bacteria multiplying.  Bacteria cause stems to be become slimy and turn the water cloudy.   The sugar acts food for the flowers.

With 535 views this past week on my blog, and a tidal wave of support on FACEBOOK, the message is clear. This community stands 100% with their Thrift Shop volunteers.

For those of us who have spent years – even decades – sorting, pricing, and chatting with you over the counter, this huge response is the “best thank you” we volunteers could ever receive.

Though the Thrift Shop has opened, functioning with a skeleton crew, the spirit of the shop is right here. Here in the comments, messages and shared memories you have sent our way.

This is not about politics or the Board. It is about RECOGNITION. The recognition of a community thanking us for the dedication that has kept the Delta Hospital open. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for standing with us. We are are not just a “skeleton staff”. The DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY THRIFT SHOP is a community of loyal volunteers. We are not going any where.

Dear friends, you will find me on line https:llbelocchio.wordpress.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

The volunteers primary concern is the comfort and support for patient care.  The  DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY THRIFT SHOP  Board of Director’s has silenced the thrift shop’s most vital supporters .  The high price of this disrespect – the  Delta Hospital equipment fund stalls amid this conflict with the Board of Directors.

When the Board cites “culture reviews”, the real culture of the thrift shop  is the one that has donated nearly 20 million dollars to the Delta Hospital since l969.  The volunteers, some with over 30 years experience, are not the problem.  They are the solution that has been locked out of their own mission.

Dear readers,  please share this link with the Board of Directors to express your support for the DELTA HOSPITAL THRIFT SHOP  volunteers.  If the heading of this blog sounds rather like a newspaper that is exactly what is intended.  The Delta Optimist has printed a one sided account that fails to include volunteers views.  It is a disrespectful treatment “to fit a specific narrative”.   A truly biased report that misrepresents DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY THRIFT SHOP volunteers in favour of The Board of Directors.  Shame on you Optimist.

Ironically, on Monday May 4th, 2026 the Board of Directors invited the volunteers to return so THEY could open the Thrift Shop they locked us out of. The same volunteers The Board Of Directors felt not capable of operating The Thrift Shop. The very volunteers that raised one million seven hundred thousand dollars in one year.

There has been no apologies from the irresponsible Board of Directors. For months The Board of Directors have ignored volunteer letters requesting answers as to why they had hired paid employees. These employees were the cause of the “unsafe environment”. The stress and unhappiness to the volunteers. We wanted them gone. The President of The Board of Directors, Maureen Mooney answered, “they are here to stay.”

We did not raise this extraordinary amount of money by our selves. Our loyal supportive friends, our customers, were our partners. They support us with donations we sell to raise this money. They support us by shopping in our three stores. Now they are supporting us in this fight to regain the control of our beloved Thrift Shop.

We volunteers are not the only people suffering because of the actions of our Board of Directors. The small businesses around The Thrift Shop have lost the traffic we bring to the area. Some of our customers live alone. The Thrift Shop has become more than just a store. It is where they meet friends and make new friends. Indulge in “retail therapy”. It is a safe store and a happy store. It is the centre of Ladner.

The Board of Directors would have us become another soulless Value Village. The Delta Hospital Foundation’s bottom line will suffer. The Delta Hospital’s facilities will suffer. The community will suffer with the reduction of health services.

The question has been why? Who benefits. Ask our volunteers. The Board of Directors has to go. All ten of the board – including the volunteers wearing two hats.

This group, this small determined group of women baked, sewed, held flea markets, held teas, bingo nights. Anything, anywhere, anytime to raise money to build their hospital. When Fraser Health tried to eliminate the hospital emergency The DELTA HOSPITAL AUXILIARY fought them. It’s happening again, but this time it is the AUXILIARY who is in danger and they are being threatened by their Board of Directors.

Here’s the thing about the perfect love affair. People become very possessive about what they love. In the small village of Ladner the THRIFT SHOP is not simply a thrift shop. People feel THE THRIFT SHOP belongs to them and they are part of the THRIFT SHOP. They donate to it. They shop there. They meet friends there. It has become a destination point for those who live outside our area. It is the sum of this and so much more. People love THE THRIFT SHOP and are proud of it. It is a very strong love affair.

You do not change something so precious, so unique, so wonderful. You support it. You cherish it. All that we are is being threatened and for absolutely no reason. The Board of Directors are supposed to work for us. We do not work for them.

This Board of Directors has to go. All of them.

On the same day volunteers were locked out without notice our COORDINATOR was suspended in a letter from The Board. She was also banned from being a volunteer. She was given no specific reason.

Yet three days later, Wednesday March 29, in a statement to The Optimist newspaper Maureen Mooney, President of The Board said, “no volunteers have been removed from the organization”. I and many others have seen the the letter sent to our Coordinator saying she had be suspended and banned from being a volunteer.

The names of the Board of Directors are Maureen Mooney, President. Katy Ellseworth, Vice-president. Brian Stewart, Treasurer. Linda Laughlin, Secretary, Cheryle Beaumont, Corrie Lane, Kathy Slater, Wendy Child, Kelly Guichon, Don Phelps. Two of the members of The Board wear two hats. They are also volunteers at the Thrift Shop .

The Board of Directors closed the doors in spite of the fact that every day, every week, in every way we work efficiently and generate an astonishing amount of money. What is the real reason for changing the course of our Thrift Shop? Who has felt this was necessary?

I joined the Delta Hospital Auxiliary more than twenty years go. At that time our volunteer work was called “the ways and means committee”. It meant we raised money for the hospital in any way we could think of. Polishing shoes for donations. Standing outside the Liquor store selling raffle tickets. Holding fashion shows and teas.

We have come a long way. There were times when the Thrift Shop struggled to find landlords who would rent to us. Now we own the stores we so proudly work in. I am a senior and a retired business woman. If I thought our Thrift Shop was an unsafe environment I would NOT come to work. If I thought volunteers were not respected or were being discriminated against I would not be part of that organization.

The Board of Directors have much to account for. THEY HAVE TO GO. ALL TEN OF THEM.