While it’s proven true that many hands make light work, there’s some question around just how many hands are required to get the job done, and in a most significant way.
Keith Dalton and Elaine Orgill are here to tell us that four hands are enough and, further, that the combined result of their volunteer efforts extends far beyond simply lightening the work.
The grateful benefactors of their extensive voluntarism number two in the form of Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes (PATH) and the Peterborough Theatre Guild, but the effect in terms of both entities’ success and continued vitality has been, and remains, boundless.
For PATH, Dalton and Orgill have been hard at it since 2021 – Dalton as project manager, to which he brought his professional engineering and managerial skills, and as the lead for the organization’s Land Acquisition Group; and Orgill as a fundraising coordinator who, with Dalton, has done much to elevate PATH’s community outreach.
Specifically, Dalton’s expertise was key in PATH’s initial 2022 city council application to locate on property at Park and Lansdowne; the partnership with Cleary Homes to facilitate the building of a model cabin and the storage of nine unassembled cabins; collaborations with building material suppliers; and negotiations with Habitat for Humanity which led to PATH’S rental of the property at its current location on Lansdowne Street East.
Orgill, meanwhile, took the fundraising lead for PATH, through Delta Bingo and her arranging for a 2023 Market Hall benefit featuring the Peterborough Concert Band – an ensemble in which she performs, alongside Dalton. To these efforts, Orgill has brought an extensive background in voluntarism, including work on behalf of Jamaican Self-Help and Grandmothers to Grandmothers.
As for the Peterborough Theatre Guild part of this joint equation, both have gone far and beyond to the great benefit of the community theatre troupe.
Over the past 30 years, Dalton has built sets for guild productions, bringing to that work his skills as an architect, designer and carpenter, while Orgill has served as the production manager for a number of the guild’s stagings over the years.
As passionate advocates for social justice, Dalton and Orgill have acted on their convictions time and time again, the result seen not only in the continued vitality and sustainability of the organizations they’re associated with, but in the Peterborough community as a whole where the selfless gift of their time and talents is a shining example of the impact of saying “I can do that…and will.”