Kelowna business raising money for forest clean ups

A Kelowna business is stepping up to help a local community group dedicated to cleaning up natural areas in the Okanagan of garbage and debris.

M&M Performance is asking for community donations to help fund new equipment for the Okanagan Forest Task Force.

Business owner, Nick Langelaan, told iNFOnews.ca that the cause is near and dear to his heart.

For Langelaan, the Task Force’s need for better resources became evident when he watched Kane Blake and his team fighting fires near his home this summer.

“The fire came pretty much right to our house and (the Okanagan Task Force) were out there just days and nights and just with spot fires and dealing with the conflicts,” Langelaan said.

After that first introduction, Langelaan said he was inspired to start a fundraiser as well as donate some of his own resources.

“We said… we should get you a side-by-side because you can access all these trails and all these areas,” he said. “We wanted to help out and we said ‘hey, we're going to donate a bunch of money towards a side-by-side and we want to start this GoFundMe so people can help donate and put money into this great cause.’”

His wife, Shelby Langelaan, established the page with a goal of raising $35,000 towards an off-road unit.

On Sunday Oct. 15, Langelaan said he volunteered with the Task Force and witnessed them remove a huge amount of waste from the Gillard Forest Service Road.

“What we saw from a two-and-a-half-hour clean-up… five kilometres away from beautiful Lakeview homes was disgusting,” he said.

Task Force Founder, Kane Blake, told iNFOnews.ca his fifty volunteers were able to remove a staggering amount of waste, amounting to nearly 10,000 pounds.

“I figured, I was hoping we could at least half fill a 40-yard dumpster, because the road didn't look too bad,” Blake said. “Between two to three hours we had completely filled a bin.”

According to Blake, illegal dumping and littering is a worsening problem in the Okanagan’s backcountry.

“When I first started the group, it was always just illegal dump sites,” he said. “And as the years have progressed, now we're finding a lot more abandoned camps, things like that, and just burnt-out vehicles.”

A large part of this is due to the rising cost of living in the Okanagan, Blake said.

“We have a lot more camps and stuff going into the bush, and when they leave, they don't always take their garbage with them. Or we're finding abandoned and dumped motorhomes and truck campers because there's nowhere to take them,” he said.

“A lot of people don't have the means to bring in a dumpster, an excavator, and things like that, and take them apart. And there's nowhere to take them. So, we find a lot of them dumped in the bush. When we first started, our average clean-up was about 3,000 pounds, and now our average clean-up is like 10,000 plus,” he said.

Alongside the increasing amount of waste is a greater need for better equipment and more donations.

“We don't get government funding and things like that, right? A lot of people assume or think that we get government funding when we don't,” Blake said. “We run off donations, volunteers, and things like that. And it's extremely important because we only have one back country. It's not something that once we take it, it's all destroyed and wrecked, we could magically bring back. It's essential that we take care of it now before it's too late.”

Blake said new side-by-side equipment would be invaluable to the work the Task Force is doing.

“It would help us huge. I mean, we can use it on all of our clean-ups for picking up garbage, shuttling volunteers to and from locations, bringing them supplies,” he said. “It's less wear and tear on our trucks for both clean-ups and for scouting out garbage.”

Blake and his team also do important fire response work, he said. New equipment would allow him and his team to respond faster and more efficiently to wildfires.

“In an average year, we respond to, I don't even know how many abandoned campfires, vehicle fires up in the bush, and fire hazards,” he said. “So, having something that we could get on the ground and be able to get up these roads or trails faster than lugging a big pickup truck up and down the road would be huge, right? We could potentially stop many forest fires that could have started from an abandoned campfire.”

For Blake, his work is not only important in keeping the landscape beautiful, but also keeping the community safe. 

"It all goes back to helping the community. And that's what we're all about," he said. "I know last year we pulled, I think it was like seven or eight vehicles that were all burnt and shot up and they were leaking all their fluids and in protected watershed." 

"I say this all the time. Our license plates say Beautiful British Columbia. But I can take you to many places in our back country that are far from beautiful," he said. "So that's why our slogan is helping to keep BC beautiful."

More information about the fundraiser can be found on the gofundme.com page here.

More information about the Okanagan Forest Task Force can be found on their website here.

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