From the seat of his wheelchair, Wayne Leonew was digging deep outside his Nanaimo home Wednesday to make sidewalks safer for his neighbours to get to the nearby grocery store.
He knows they will struggle if his big corner lot isn’t clear.
“They would for sure,” Leonew said.
He’s one of many across Vancouver Island who are pitching in, to show kindness to others in this cold and severe snow event.
“The conditions are pretty scary for a lot of people, especially if you don’t have a lot of snow driving experience, lots of the roads haven’t been plowed,” Matthew Yeoman of the VI Toyota 4 x 4 Club said.
Yeoman is another helping out.
He and fellow members of the Vancouver Island Toyota 4 x 4 club from Victoria to Port Hardy, are volunteering and have so far driven hundreds of health care workers to and from work through the storm.
“Nurses, doctors, medical assistants,” said Yeoman.
“It’s mayhem for a lot of people but we just put our trucks in four-wheel drive and hope for the best.”
And they’ve promised to continue however long this storm holds here.
“Yeah there’s posts every ten minutes people looking for rides,” Yeoman said.
According to the City of Nanaimo road crews, that continued kindness will be badly needed Wednesday night.
An additional 30 centimetres is in the forecast along with gale-force winds.
“If your neighbours are having difficulty shovelling their driveway or sidewalk, please give them a hand and make everyone survive this little event we’re having,” Nanaimo Manager of Roads & Traffic Services David Myles said.
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