If you were listening to CBC Radio One (91.3 FM) yesterday – Information Morning Saint John – you might have caught Liz, owner of the Urban Deli. She was in to talk about the Uptown, restaurants and what the future might hold. The CBC site puts it this way: “Owner and operator of the Urban Deli, Elizabeth Rowe, tells us about the development opportunites in the uptown.”
If you missed it, you catch the podcast here: The Future Of Development In Uptown Saint John.
We can’t begin to understand what the people in Haiti are experiencing or how Haitian Canadians are feeling given the scope of the disaster. How do you wrap your mind around it? But we do understand the need for help. So though it may be small in comparison to the need, we’d like to so something.
As of tomorrow, when you’re at the Urban Deli and paying for what you’ve ordered, we’ll be set up so that if you want to, you can give whatever change you get back to Haiti. We’ll have a jar by the cash register. Or if you just want to drop something in there, please do.
And for the next few Saturdays when you’re in the Deli, if you order fries (what we like to call Potato Frites), the money will be going to Haiti.
Any money raised will be going to the Canadian Red Cross for Haiti relief and rebuilding.
There are many other ways to help Haiti as well. The CBC has a pretty comprehensive list on their web site (just scroll down the page a bit).
One of the largest is, of course, the Canadian Red Cross. From the CBC site: “The Canadian Red Cross is accepting donations to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. Donations can be earmarked to the Haiti earthquake fund. Canadians who wish to give may donate online by clicking here. Donations can also be made by calling 1-800-418-1111 or by visiting any Red Cross office.”
By the way, watch out for scams. Sad though it is, there are people out there who would take advantage of this tragedy, particularly online. Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs has a page How Canadians Can Help that has a lot of good information on what to donate, experienced humanitarian organizations, as well as other information on “major disasters and other emergencies abroad.”
People here in Saint John have very real connections with Haiti. Our thoughts are with them.
We saw a story on CBC New Brunswick today, Saint John urged to rename city centre ‘downtown.’ We’re curious to hear what you think. From the CBC story:
A former Saint John mayor (Eric Teed) is pushing to have the long-held expression for the city’s centre switched from the confusing “uptown” moniker to the more traditional term of “downtown.”
When asked, Liz, the owner of the Urban Deli, said, “That’s crazy!” We’ve had a few tweets from others that seem to agree.
Liz is actually very proud of being part of Uptown Saint John. Of course, she’s always been a fan of the urban core, everywhere, feeling that’s where the heart of a city should be. It’s where all the vitality of its business, culture, arts and, yes, people who live there, should be and interact.
She has some pretty strong opinions on this, particularly in the context of Saint John. When we asked her about this uptown-downtown thing she started in on how there are more important things to worry about, like the usual issues that affect any city’s urban core — housing, drugs, business support and so on.
But what do you think? Uptown? Downtown? Does it matter to you? We’d like to hear what you think.
