Staff from Chestermere’s RBC undertook a clean-up along the shoreline of John Peake Park June 14. The Blue Day Campaign is a company initiative encouraging RBC employees to get out into their community and promote awareness for the preservation of our water resources.
Branch Manager Mellissa Dang brought together colleagues from her office along with 2 staff members from the McNight RBC in a collaborative effort in the park clean-up. You may have seen this group sporting blue t–shirts and garbage bags in their efforts in promoting shoreline ecology. They spent an afternoon along the NW corner of the lake filling bags with garbage.
This area is especially bad for litter due to the location of nearby food venues and its high user rate. Walking along the retaining wall it was evident that the wind blows a lot of the garbage into the lake.
Dang told me that the branch also was handing out “Seed Marks” to clients and taking the opportunity to educate them on RBC’S commitment to the Blue Water Project.
“The Seed Marks will give us an opportunity to engage clients in a conversation to help them understand what it is we are doing as an organization in creating awareness through key messages,” she said.
Key points they shared included using plants to help reduce storm water runoff and flooding, the ability of plants to remove and filter chemicals and sediment, and using native species to reduce excess fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides usage that can end up in the water supply.
In 2007 RBC initiated its $50 million dollar Blue Water Project, an impressive 10-year global commitment to help protect the world’s fresh water resources. The BWP website outlines its mandate to protect watersheds and promote access to clean drinking water in areas where RBC does business. Over 650 charitable organizations have taken advantage of the funding as well as $ 7.8 million dollars pledged to universities for water programs.
The many projects undertaken from this initiative have created a ripple effect throughout the world. Although the target areas were Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and the United Kingdom, the project pledged $10 million to the One Drop Foundation. The mandate of this charity created by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte is to fight poverty throughout the world by making sure everyone has access to clean water.
More local projects included a campaign by University of Calgary to share information to 700 homeowners and 1300 school children about their impact on local ground water.
Halfway through the project RBC did a review and saw a need to redirect the focus of the campaign to protect and restore urban and community waterways. Projects that improve control and management of storm water or rainwater are seen as vital to the protection of our towns and cities fresh water supply.
Other projects are aimed at improving water quality and watershed protection in Aboriginal communities throughout Canada. There are presently over 100 First Nation communities with unsafe drinking water.
Ali Esmail from RBC’s McNight branch told of the group effort of employee’s from the Western Region to do a huge clean-up along the Bow River by Edworthy Park in Calgary in their mandate to improve local watersheds.
It is the hope of Dang’s team that their presence in the community will add to the awareness, hope and success of the Blue Water Project and that they too have created a ripple in our town.
Additional information about the BWP may be found through links at www.rbc.com
