The Bassermann family knows about volunteerism and community involvement. From city council to the education system, sports and arts, cultural development and charity aid, Don and Barb Bassermann have touched more worthy causes than can ever be counted.
A new endeavour has them combining things close to their heart into one endowment fund.
"We have someone with autism in our crowd," said Don, referring to one of the grandchildren in their local clan. "I was a board member with the Prince George Community Foundation so I was familiar with that operation, and we wanted to help out some families who have some needs and challenges in regard to autism. We know how fortunate we are, but there are a lot of others out there who have struggles, and autism presents some special things to overcome sometimes. If we could work together a little bit, we knew we could raise some money to make that a bit easier for folks."
The Bassermann penchant for fresh food is locally legendary. They have an epic backyard garden, are avid fishers and hunters, and Don does instructional speaking on the topic of so-called scavenging nutritious edibles from the forests and grasslands of the area.
One of his contacts is the REAPS organization and they contacted him one day about an overabundance of plastic wine-making carboys someone was trying to get rid of to a responsible home. Bassermann was in no need of carboys but looking at them in the spirit of finding a use for this windfall gave him an idea.
"I was looking at them, and it suddenly occurred to me that it resembled a pig, with the spout looking like the snout," Bassermann said.
So he painted and decorated one to look like a comical porker. Once that was complete, he took it step further and made one into an elephant. The creative momentum took him next to do a panda. With a hole cut out of the carboy, these cartoon containers were easily converted into a friendly, water-safe planter.
He started giving them away as door prizes at his seminars. Participants were delighted and started making requests for their favourite animal characters.
That's when the Bassermanns knew they were onto something more than constructive curiosity. It quickly followed that this could be a fundraiser and there was no better cause within their own family than autism.
A quick call to the Community Foundation, and another affirmative one to the Child Development Centre to handle the application process for those in need of help, and they had an endowment fund up and running.
They just had to fill it.
"We saw how many carboys there were, we set a price of $100 for the garden planters, and that led us to set a goal of $10,000 for the fund, but who says that's where it would stop?" Bassermann said.
They have already raised $6,000 towards that goal and the campaign has only been underway a few weeks. A lot of that came from sales of the planters, but some came from substantial donations from people who saw this fund as one they wanted to financially support.
"If we can get to $10,000, that means it will pay out about $400 a year to families who need a little bit of support, and that will grow if we can go beyond the $10,000," he said.
Some of the little things that come up for families supporting an autistic child, said Bassermann, are supportive games and other resources to aid in socialization or education, camps and outings, electronic equipment and other assistive tools, specialized blankets and clothing, and other hidden costs borne by people with an autism diagnosis in their household.
"We're just so pleased to see the positive response," he said. "It's all recycled materials. We've had a ton of fun playing with the bits and pieces as we make these little critters. And a real extra highlight for Barbara and I is, it's a chance for us to see Rob and Nikki (parents of the autistic grandchild) get engaged as well in doing this important community work. It's something we love that we can do together. From a family perspective, we are excited about that."
Other friends and contacts have gotten involved as well, like when the Bassermanns hosted a painting party last week where a collection of people gathered in their backyard for some wine around the campfire, and together mass-produced about 30 of the blank carboys into charming planters now up for sale for the endowment fund.
Anyone wishing to buy into this initiative can contact the Prince George Community Foundation and for each $100 donation to the account, an "adorable up-cycled planter" will be delivered to you.
You can also email bassermann@shaw.ca for any information.
