The Sheila Bailin North Saanich Currents Community Impact Fund

by Meenal Shrivastava & Jillian Buriak

Sheila’s lifelong work on community issues focused on women and  youth. This past year, it was a joy to work with Sheila on North Saanich Currents as we planned our quarterly editions and exchanged ideas about growing NSC’s repository of community resources and local stories. 

After receiving her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer early this year, Sheila’s concern was to ensure that the important work of fostering community must continue, especially in these polarized times. She was particularly keen to include young people’s voices in how we perceive the present and our dreams for the future. 

Sheila worked with the Development Office at her alma mater, the University of Victoria, to create a fund to bring young people’s voices to North Saanich Currents. Housed in the Community Engages Learning Office, this fund is open to students from all disciplines and at any level of study. 

The Sheila Bailin Community Impact Fund, provides an annual, one-term placement of minimum 35 hours with North Saanich Currents. This virtual placement (with occasional in-person events and meetings) will enable the recipient to collaboratively define objectives, activities, timeline, deliverables, and protocols with the editors of NSC. There are so many interesting stories just waiting to be told about people, volunteer initiatives, the environment, farming, and the histories, for example, in and of North Saanich.

The application deadline is 27 October 2026, and adjudication results will be announced in mid-to-late November. 

If you know a student at the University of Victoria who has ties with North Saanich in terms of family or research connections, please forward this information to them and ask them to contact us with any questions. We would love to hear from you!

Learn more about Community Engaged Learning at UVic here: Community-engaged learning – Career Services – UVic