If you’ve ever been to an event on Texada Island, chances are Elayne Boloten, 49, had a hand in organizing it.
An island resident since 1996, Boloten is president of the Texada Island Community Society (TICS) which sponsors well-attended annual events including Sandcastle Weekend, the spring swap meet and winter island-wide potluck dinner, as well as the Texada food bank. TICS also provides an annual scholarship for a needy student to further post-secondary studies. Additionally, Boloten is active in the newly-founded Texada Island Fire Fighters Auxiliary (TIFFA), and the Kids for Saving Earth day camp for children and youth.
Under her leadership, TICS maintains a “publishing empire” including a monthly calendar of events-style newsletter, The Express Lines, a semi-annual historical-flavoured newspaper, The Texada Island Lines, local maps and tourist brochures and the island telephone book. And when she isn’t involved in organizing any of the above, Boloten can be found tending bar or cooking at the Royal Canadian Legion, canvassing for Heart and Stroke Foundation or serving as returning officer for elections. She’s also the secretary of Texada’s Chamber of Commerce.
Boloten readily admits she doesn’t know how to say “no. Volunteering is who I am and the best part of volunteering is the interaction with people.”
Born in Montreal and raised in Prince Rupert, Boloten graduated from University of BC as a microbiologist. She worked in Vancouver at the BC Centre for Disease Control’s HIV testing lab and while there met her husband, Ed Kowalyk, who worked in the vehicle brake industry. In 1996 when Kowalyk flew to Texada for a job interview with the quarry, Boloten went with him.
“Before that I’d never heard of Texada Island and as the plane landed I saw deer grazing alongside the runway unconcerned about the plane, and all the natural beauty, and I knew I was in paradise,” she said. “Right away I loved the peace and quiet, a different universe from Vancouver.” They rented, then bought, a home on Case Lake, but it was 2001 before she became active as a community volunteer. She began cooking, then bartending, at the Legion, where she continues to share the witty camaraderie of patrons.
The same year Boloten joined TICS where her analytical mind, lively personality, sense of humour and organizational skills made her a natural leader for the group. She was elected president in 2006. While TICS was founded in 1929 to operate a tennis club in Van Anda in what is now a private residence, the society has since become an umbrella organization for many of the island’s community-serving activities. “TICS supports groups which are working to benefit everyone on Texada,” Boloten said. “We do this through grants and providing manpower and expertise.”
As chair of the Sandcastle Weekend organizing committee, she looks after obtaining grants, permits, insurance and even portable toilets. “I do the grunt work, the minutia, while others do the big stuff,” she says modestly. This year was the 29th year of Sandcastle Weekend, which continues to evolve with more activities throughout the two-day event. “New things are happening, such as the Saturday night laser light show and the skim jam skim-boarding lessons, while we’ve maintained the favourites such as the parade, evening moon bags, bed races and, of course, the sandcastle-building competition. We’ve really worked hard in recent years to make it a family-friendly event.”
The Kids for Saving Earth day camp last month celebrated its fifth year of operation and Boloten is one of the key organizers of the environment-oriented week-long youth program. She also works with the children and takes photographs.
She’s a volunteer with TIFFA, which was launched in 2012 following the Labour Day weekend fire at Shelter Point Park. The group is setting up a phone tree for firefighters’ call-outs, organizes food and water for firefighters if an event is prolonged and is now working to address emergency social services needs on the island. And if you are ever arrested by Texada RCMP and have to spend the night behind bars on the island, you’ll see Boloten there as well. She’s the on-call overnight jail matron, which she says happens about once a year.
In whatever Boloten calls “spare” time, she and Kowalyk operate a home-based business, Pacific Brake Factory, where he works on the brakes and she does everything else.
