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Let’s Demystify the Salt Spring Island Foundation and How It Works

If you’re wondering how to give back to community, but aren't sure where to focus your efforts, it might be the perfect time to learn more about Salt Spring Island’s community foundation.

Affectionately referred to by locals as “the Foundation”, how it serves and supports this community is still a mystery to many islanders.

Simply put, the Foundation is a charity that serves other local charities through its growing number of grant programs and funds. It accepts public donations of money, securities, or will bequests, and channels them back into local charities doing important work on the ground. It’s a simple and broad way to give back to the causes you care most about and provides a tax benefit in return for your generosity.

It’s worth shining a light on this mystery because the Foundation is celebrating a banner year in distributing Salt Spring’s generosity back into the community. A testament to the power of local philanthropy, the 2025/26 C…

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Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC) Meeting Report for August 20, 2026

Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC) Meeting Report for August 20, 2026

The Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC) held its regular August daytime business meeting on Thursday, August 20, at 9:00 am at the SIMS Board Room (streaming online with TEAMS). The full 71 page agenda package, including minutes of the previous meeting, presentations, staff reports, and supporting documentation, is available online

Presentations and Delegations The LCC received a presentation from Robert and Mamie Fenton and Hutt Temoana, from the RV Alliance, providing an update on the proposed RV Alliance Housing Project for Beddis Road. The LCC received a delegation from Rachael Gilliam, Fulford valley residents Club on agenda Item 7.1 Proposed Pickleball Court Location. The LCC received a delegation from David Courtney on agenda item 7.6 SSI Liquid Waste Removal (included in agenda package). LCC Business

7.1 Proposed Pickleball Court Locat…

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Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC) Special Budget Meeting Report for August 13, 2026

Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC) Meeting Report for August 13, 2026

The Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission (LCC) held a special budget meeting on Thursday, August 13, at 9:00 am at the SIMS Board Room (streaming online with TEAMS). The full 183 page agenda package, including presentations, staff reports, and supporting documentation, is available online

Presentations and Delegations The LCC received a delegation from Darlene Gage, Transition Salt Spring, on agenda item 4.2. “Transition Salt Spring Funding Request” related to continued funding for climate change initiatives. The LCC received a delegation from Susan Palmer, SSI Arts Council, on agenda item 4.3 “Salt Spring Island Arts One-Time Funding Request” (included in agenda package). The LCC received a delegation from Howard Jang, ArtSpring, on agenda item 4.3 “Salt Spring Island Arts One-Time Funding Request” (included in agenda package). LCC Special Meeting Matters…
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Welcoming MLA Botterell to Discuss Disturbing Legislation as Well as Local Challenges and Progress

Please join us this Friday, September 11, 11-1, in the SIMS classroom next to the Boardroom to welcome Susanna Haas Lyons and David Norget to lead a frank, and open conversation about respectful dialogue based on issues rather than personal attacks.

Fifteen joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MLA Botterell. During Rob’s Acknowledgement, he expressed his appreciation of the many First Nations who stewarded our lovely islands, recognizing their patience as we try to understand, embrace, and implement reconciliation. After each of us had a chance to introduce ourselves, Rob told us that he was “excited and delighted” by his three weeks of sailing, joyful to return home to a thriving garden lush with produce, well-defended by his 8’ deer fence.

Rob began by telling us a bit about BC’s new Infrastructure Project Act, designed to get hospitals, schools and other public infrastructure built faster. This would be done by putting certain "designated p…

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Time to Talk

Are we “an argument surrounded by water?” This description was originally meant to be a criticism, but – characteristically of Salt Springers – it’s been adopted as a whimsical badge of honour and cover to play out our oppositional tendencies as good fun. But lately, some of Salt Spring’s arguments aren’t that productive. If you’ve spent any time in the social media groups, or even the letters section of the Driftwood, you’ll have seen it. Often those speaking (typing) are highly intelligent and well-informed, but the ill will in the writing undercuts what would otherwise be productive dialogue, slows down the possibility for solving our very real island challenges, and hurts the people who are targeted. That’s why ASK Salt Spring has decided to take up the subject of how we talk to each other at the Friday September 11th 11-1 gathering at the SIMS classroom next to the Boardroom. Salt Springers Susanna Haas Lyons and David Norget, both experts in facilitating healthy com…
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BC's New Law Could Sink The Gulf Islands

BC’s Gulf islands, protected from over-development since 1974 by the Islands Trust Act, are facing manifold threats that have serious consequences for the future of their unique ecosystems and rural character—in short, everything that sets them apart from the urban sprawl of surrounding areas. Last year, the provincial government, by the narrowest of margins, passed the Infrastructure Projects Act, or Bill 15, a blanket law that allows the provincial government to fast-track core-service projects such as schools and hospitals, but also “provincially significant” projects that could include private development schemes, mining operations. and other commercial enterprises, depending on regulations yet to be finalized. Shockingly, the Islands Trust, responsible for 13 major islands and hundreds of smaller ones, was not excluded from the legislation despite its special “preserve and protect” mandate. The decision not to exempt the Islands Trust undermines the Islands Trust A…
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The Trust Must Be Stopped From Moving the Goalposts

As an Islands Trust candidate, I have been getting a lot of questions about Baker Beach since the matter came before the Local Trust Committee on August 27. I want to explain what happened in my own words.

This is not just a dispute about one property. It reflects a much broader problem at Islands Trust: requirements are not identified early, interpretations change without public explanation, and applicants and taxpayers pay for work that should not need to be repeated. That raises serious questions about transparency, accountability and whether residents can rely on the answers their local government gives them.

Looking more closely at how the Trust operates has shown me how deep these problems run and helped motivate me to become a candidate. The good news is that they are solvable, but it will take rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

Let me explain. A recent Driftwood article reported the latest turn in the Baker Beach matter but left…

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What's On This Week on CHIR-FM

Interviews with Pitchfork Social’s David Youngson and Russel Barsh of the Kwiáht conservation biology lab, a discussion how to treat dilute urine in your pets, and a segment on the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program in Victoria are among the fascinating offerings coming your way this week on CHIR-FM, the Voice of the Gulf Islands. Tune in to 107.9 FM (or 102.1 FM in the South End) or stream the station online to hear more than 25 unique local programs on your community radio station.

Highlights for the coming week include:

Tuesday (Sept 8) 9-10 am. On Canada Fresh, host David Crouch plays a baker’s dozen of new music curated from across Canada. This week featuring 2 songs from 16-year-old Fredericton sensation Evan Cooper.

Tuesday (Sept 8) 1-2 p.m. On This Song, That Time, the show following the Labour Day long weekend is about work. Labour Day is one of the oldest secular holidays in Canada and it was implemented at a time when the 12…

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Robin Jenkinson for Islands Trustee; Serving the mandate. Sustaining island life.

There is a good reason why people marvel at the beauty of Salt Spring. The Islands Trust was created with a mandate to preserve and protect these extraordinary islands and their unique amenities and environment for island residents and British Columbia as a whole.

I believe deeply in this mandate. Preservation does not mean freezing the islands in time. It means helping human communities live within ecological limits so people and Nature can thrive together for generations.

Our forests, farms, wetlands, watersheds, shorelines and marine ecosystems provide water, support biodiversity and make island life possible.

I am a biologist, environmental educator and community-builder with over 20 years of experience in ecological restoration, research, planning and stewardship. My graduate work focused on ecology, and I hold certificates in Urban Design and Co-Management of Natural Resources.

My namesake, Robert Jenkinson, settled in Victoria f…

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Buried in the Agenda: Free Buses, a Harbourwalk, Crosswalk Lights & Other Things the LCC Is Talking About

The Salt Spring Island Local Community Commission meets again on Thursday, September 10 at 5 p.m., and the agenda package is 42 pages long.

We read it so you don’t have to.

Here are some of the things tucked inside that might actually affect life on the island — without the motions, appendices and approximately nine different ways of saying “staff will report back.”

You may eventually ride the bus to vote for free

The LCC is being asked to approve a new policy that would make Salt Spring Transit free for all riders on general voting days for federal, provincial and local elections.

Other BC transit systems already do this, and staff say the financial impact here should be minimal. If approved, the policy would also allow the LCC to add additional free-transit days in the future.

So: democracy, now potentially with complimentary transportation.

Rainbow Road Recreation Centre needs some expensive attention

Burie…

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