By Calli Forbes
At the Wood Buffalo Regional Library, Librarian Nicole Greville meets with a group of Fort McMurray residents to practice English conversation over coffee and snacks.
It’s been more than two months since the ESL group last met and the room is abuzz with conversation. After all, there’s a lot to catch up on.
May 3, 2016, the day of their last meeting, Nicole led the group in a conversation about the importance of having an emergency preparedness kit in their homes. Later that afternoon, the ESL group, along with more than 80,000 other Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo residents, found themselves face-to face with encroaching wildfires, forcing them to evacuate their community.
Although Nicole was able to return to Fort Mac on June 12, the library remained closed until July. Feeling restless, Nicole decided to focus her energies elsewhere – volunteering with the Canadian Red Cross.
“I felt really empowered knowing that I can lend a hand and feel that I can make an impact because that’s what I would do in my day-to-day job,” she explains. “I got to take those tools and those feelings and those experiences and put them into volunteering with this amazing organization that I can see makes a difference and made a difference for me.”
Fast forward more than two months after the fires, the ESL program is just one of many library programs back up and running for Fort McMurray residents.
Today’s topic of conversation: the participant’s experiences during the wildfires. The group shares stories of being evacuated; even laughing over some of the odd items they decided to pack in the hours before they left their homes.
Nicole also invited Red Cross volunteer Allen Ledyit and representatives from FCSS Counseling Services and Alberta Mental Health to join the group to provide psychosocial support and resources if needed.
Nicole says she views the library as a safe and comfortable space for people to access information. Yet sometimes during exceptional circumstances, such as disasters, organizations like the Red Cross come in handy.
“Knowing that we can reach out to the Red Cross … it’s truly uplifting for us because it means we can provide the information and provide access to our patrons,” she says. “I think we are really a conduit for people to get that access and really help them settle and try to find that new normal.”
And as for Nicole, she says she’s fully committed to helping her community get back to this ‘new normal’ – whether it’s through her day job or through volunteering with the Red Cross.
“I just want to give back every day.”