The town of Summerland is blessed with having “Snow Angels,” people who shovel snow for others. The community of Faulder has them too.
After a particularly heavy snowfall earlier this month, Rob Arnt and a couple of his friends spent the better part of two days ploughing out the neighbourhood.
Arnt and his next door neighbour own a loader together and use it to clear snow from their own driveways.
“On Sunday I ploughed our driveways,” Arnt explained. “On Monday I woke up and there was another foot of snow!”
Just as he finished ploughing the driveways again, two of his friends showed up on quads equipped with snow blades.
“When you plough with a loader it leaves little berms and it takes a long time to clean up after yourself, so the quads were cleaning up behind me.”
As they headed out to plough another neighbour’s driveway, they encountered even others along the way that needed help with snow removal. The team set about ploughing driveways until 4 p.m. that afternoon.
The following morning Arnt received a call about another friend who was snowed in.
“The grader had gone by and ploughed him in,” Arnt explained, “so on my way down there I started knocking grader berms out wherever I saw them.”
On his way to his friends, he saw an elderly lady out shovelling snow.
“The look on her face as I came down the road on the loader was priceless,” he said.
He cleared her driveway for her and a couple of others, before he finally arrived at his friends.
Arnt spoke of the element of surprise when one receives an act of kindness.
“Anyone that expects something probably won’t get it and will be disappointed if they don’t. The surprise of something is way better because they’re not expecting it.”
In regards to spending another day out ploughing snow, Arnt said “It just happened. When you see someone that needs a hand, you give them a hand.”
There were other folks in Faulder who were out helping their neighbours too.
“Everybody was out doing for everybody. It’s a community thing,” said Arnt. “That’s what life is all about. I don’t think you’ve lived if you haven’t helped people out.”
Over the years Arnt said that he had experienced people giving him a helping hand, so he enjoys doing things for others as a way of giving back. He also said he thought it was a bit “weird” to be having his good deed publicized.
“When I grew up I can remember people helping out, and us going and helping out people,” he said. “You just did it. I was brought up that way. I think that’s the way it should be.”
Arnt also expressed how lucky he was to have people in his life that supported him, when he chose to be helpful to others.
“My girlfriend wasn’t upset that I was out ploughing snow,” he said.
The neighbour who is a co-owner of the loader also seemed to support his efforts.
“I told him I worked the loader for two days and didn’t make a dime and said I hope you don’t mind…and he gave me a high five,” explained Arnt.
As Arnt and his two buddies went around the neighbourhood clearing snow, the words they heard most often from people were, “Thanks! How much do we owe you?”
“Nothing,” they responded. “Buy us a beer sometime.”
If you know a positive story about someone in our community, contact Carla McLeod at carlamcleod@shaw.ca or contact the Summerland Review newsroom at 250-494-5406.