Group home resident Orrin Hunt helps unload the boxes. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Community support

Porcupine Plain group home residents pitch in to help wildfire evacuees

Jul 3, 2025 | 4:37 PM

The Director of Saskatchewan First Nation Emergency Management said she was moved to tears after hearing group home residents from Porcupine Plain wanted to help the wildfire evacuees.

Michelle Vandevord was present on Thursday when a truck that travelled over three hours, showed up at Cottage 11 on the Joseph Custer Reserve grounds and dropped off boxes and boxes of goods and supplies.

The Porcupine Opportunities Program is a not-for-profit that supports adults with disabilities. Executive Director Ruth Howes explained the adult participants decided after hearing about the wildfires on the TV and in the news and that they wanted to reach out and do something.

“They decided to go into the community, which is a community of 864 people, and they raised just over $2,000 which allowed us to order supplies and put together the packs of care,” she said.

Thursday’s donation consisted of 600 adult bags and 400 bags of activities for kids. The bags for the adults contained personal hygiene type items and toiletries.

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Ruth Howe and Orrin Hunt meet members of the Saskatchewan First Nation Emergency Management team. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

Howes noted they have three group homes in Porcupine Plain, and each group home went out and canvassed their own area. While some community members donated cash, others donated diapers and other baby items or personal hygiene items.

“It is pretty exciting to see them get behind it and we had two gos at it in our day program where we lined up everything and they went around and put the first set of packs together and then we had to wait for some more stuff to come in and they did it again.They were so excited.”

One of the residents, Orrin Hunt, helped make Thursday’s donation and had a large smile on his face when asked how it felt to help.

“Very good,” he replied.

Vandevord and a few other members of the First Nation Emergency Management team helped unload the boxes.

“It’s very moving, especially when I first got the phone call, and she started telling me about her program and where they were from. It just really touched my heart,” Vandevord said.

Acknowledging the amount of hard work and time it took to gather the donations, Vandevord also noted that within many families, there are people with special needs and different disabilities.

‘So that’s what makes it really heartwarming, because we can see our own families in this donation and we know that the support will be going to people who very desperately need the help and support,” she said. “I know it’s gonna be very impactful for a lot of people in the North who aren’t home yet, who have really lost everything and to know that there’s people that they never even would have thought of, thinking of them, it just makes it more special.”

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Blue Sky: @nigelmaxwell.bsky.social