Local News

The students at Elphinstone Secondary School took in more than $7,000 after expenses from their work on the ninth annual Festival of Lights at Tim Hortons/Wendy's.

Eight people sharing a two-bedroom house. A woman and her handicapped son making their home in a school bus. Down and out people - often those who are mentally ill, alcoholic or both - living in the bush or temporarily sleeping on a friend's sofa.

News that funding has been secured for the initial phase of the Sechelt marine access project has members of the committee excited about the economic impact for the community.

Before a single note of music was played, the tsunami relief effort organized at Sunnycrest Mall last Friday had raised $500. And by the end of the three-hour musical fundraiser, nearly $5,000 in donations had filled numerous jars.

Kids, parents and grandparents packed the Sunshine Coast Arena Jan. 1 to take part in the first Polar Bear Play Day.

The arrival of the 2005 New Year's baby had a touch of drama as one doctor delivered two babies just nine minutes apart. Caryss Hill, born at 11:26 a.m. Jan. 2, at St. Mary's Hospital, won the title of the Sunshine Coast's New Year's baby.

Sixty-nine-year-old Len Homenchuk opens his raccoon coat to show off his original 1920s bathing suit, worn from Polar Bear swims gone by. He's been a regular sight on Davis Bay's waterfront every Jan. 1 for the past 15 years.

What are Driftwood Players thinking? Instead of their usual lighter-than- laundry-lint Christmas comedy, the Coast's venerable theatre troupe chose a drama this year for their three week run - Terence Rattigan's play, Separate Tables.

Students learned the fundamentals of fencing at Halfmoon Bay Elementary School this week.

A Beachcombers Christmas, a movie filmed on the Coast last summer, opened to a receptive audience at the Gibsons Cinema last Saturday, two weeks before its national airing on CBC TV. A nearly full house at the 5:45 p.m.