Explore Beaumont - Winter's icy grip has definitely hit Beaumont. Of course with that comes our fair share of snow. Every winter it's always interesting because in November and December when the snow falls, people get out there usually right away to shovel. But as December falls into January, people get a little tired of shoveling snow. This is especially true if there are extreme cold conditions.
That's where we come in! We are doing a ‘Beaumont Snow Sngels’ program this winter where we will come and do the public sidewalks, or your entire home's sidewalks, for free! All you have to do is contact us and we will try our best to get out as soon as we can.
Our first two weeks of this program have been very good. When we aren't contacted about entire sidewalks, we have been going out and walking up and down the public sidewalks in a few neighborhoods and just clearing off anything that hadn't already been done. We think this is as much as a service to the community to help create safe walking spaces as it is to help those who might be a little too busy to get it done right away, or who are unable to do it at all due to various circumstances. So far we have done about a 100 neighborhood homes public sidewalks to help making our families walks with our dogs or walks to school with our kids a little safer.
So why are we doing this?
When I was younger, I learned the importance of having clean and safe public sidewalks. As one of my part time jobs to make ends meet as a college student, for 3 Winters I was hired as a subcontractor to go out and shovel snow at 5 commercial sites or retail businesses. If there was snowfall at all on a certain day, I would get a telephone call at about 8 at night and was told to head out the next morning to shovel. It didn't matter what time I started, all that mattered was that by the end I had to be done all of my sites by no later than 7 a.m. So I often woke up at 2 or 3 in the morning to make sure I got the job done on time, until I figured out how to do the job as quickly as possible. I remember one January in particular where it's snowed 19 out of 21 days! By about the fifth or sixth day, my hands would be completely frozen shut when I woke up, and I would actually have to turn on the hot water tap in the bathroom with my elbows and let my hands soak in the hot water for a few minutes for them to be able to open. Shortly after I would be off to shovel again!
I saw the value in what I was doing on those cold mornings, and it felt good to know that I was prevents accidents, injuries, or worse. So that's why we're doing this!
How can you help?
- If you know of someone who is having a hard time keeping up with the snow removal this year, and you think that they could use a little help, please contact me with the address and we will get out as much as we can to help out!
- If you have a young person in your house who would like to get some work experience and volunteer hours, not to mention an excellent reference letter from US, we would also love you to contact us so that we can make arrangements for them to help make someone's winter a little easier!
- You can help us get the word out about this program by sharing this on social media (using hashtag #beaumontsnowangels and my Facebook or Instagram handle) and letting your neighbours know about it as well.
Thanks for your support!