It can be difficult and waste precious minutes for a fire truck or ambulance to locate a home that doesn’t have clear signage. And before a grant from the Community Foundation of the South Okanagan Similkameen, many Kaleden residents didn’t have their homes clearly marked.

“Many residents didn’t have proper house number signs that could be easily seen or found in an emergency,” said Linda Dahl, a member of the Kaleden Volunteer Fire Department who applied for a grant through the Community Foundation Annual Grants program.

“There are a lot of elderly residents in Kaleden and this was something that was not only needed for them but for all of us,” said Dahl.

After receiving a grant from the Community Foundation, Dahl sent out messages on social media, posted on the community message board and put an ad in the local newspaper and she had more than 80 residents respond and ask to purchase the signs for their home.  The grant reduced the cost of the signs to residents.  The group had such a good response that they secured additional funding to offer more signs to residents in the hopes that all houses will be properly marked.