Good news, I have more information on the banners after last week’s column.
In the last few years, there have not been enough banners painted to fill all of the poles on Victoria Road, so others were needed.
The Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre also received Resort Municipality Initiative funding for wildflower banners that will be put up to compliment Revelstoke’s summer wildflower festival later this year.
Tourism Revelstoke said they work closely with Arts Revelstoke, the museums, the visual arts centre as well as other art businesses in town, to promote the arts and culture experiences in Revelstoke.
Lesson of the day, if you like the hand painted banners, you should sign up to paint one! They usually do them every year in the fall.
And if you have opinions about how you want Revelstoke to be into the future, take the time to provide feedback. Right now you can have your say in the Official Community Plan, through the city’s talkrevelstoke.ca website. Other things you can do include keeping an eye out for surveys, public hearings and information meetings and participating in them, voting in municipal elections and volunteering on city steering committees or other organizations that work to shape our city.
READ MORE: Jocelyn’s Jottings: Arts and culture make up the soul in every community
In other musings…
On May 1 there were more than 400,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in India, bringing the countries total up to more than 19 million, according to the World Health Organization.
Though the United States has reported the most COVID cases at almost 32 million, India has the second most of any country in the world.
News organizations are showing pictures of patients two to a bed in a Delhi hospital and reporting oxygen shortages.
According to the Our World in Data project based out of Oxford University, around 125,000,000 people have been given at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but in a country of more than one billion people, that is only nine per cent of the population.
I was struck by a sentiment that I came across several times while reading more about what is going on in India.
“We let the rich infect the poor,” reads the headline of a column written by sociologist Dipankar Gupta for The Tribune in India.
READ MORE: Okanagan chef raising funds to support India’s COVID-19 crisis
The first cases of COVID-19 were identified in Wuhan, China, late in 2019. It was then spread around the world by travellers.
Is it likely that someone who earns less than $2 a day in India travelled out of country, picked up the virus and returned home to unknowingly spread it?
Probably not.
This made me sit back and think for a minute, as I have before, about the impact of international travel. Though it should seem obvious (remember how Indigenous communities were hit hard by smallpox when the Europeans arrived, back in the day?), preventing the spread of disease, even after COVID-19 (whenever that is), is something else to consider.
I often wonder what impact I am having on the world, but it is usually less physical. Who will remember me when I die? What will my legacy be? What work or ideas or art can I contribute?
But I also need to think about the physical impact I am having on the world, my carbon footprint, my actual footprint when walking in the woods (squishing plants can be bad!) and what viruses I am spreading around when I travel.
Want to do more than think about avoiding the spread of diseases in the future, several organizations, including the Red Cross, are accepting donations to aid India. Make sure to research these organizations before donating.
READ MORE: Column: Let’s uplift the heroes in India’s battle against COVID-19
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