How It All Started

Rev. Vandermey held a night vigil at Knox Church for the people of Elora to support the victims of the tsunami.  During the service Rev. Vandermey asked if anyone would be interested in doing some kind of fundraising in order to help the victims.   Five people volunteered to help.  Those people were, Lawrie, Randi, Jennifer, Melissa and Aileen. It was decided that we would meet as a group and come up with a plan to raise money for the victims of the tsunami.

A week or two later we met at the Church again to discuss our thoughts and ideas.  It was amazing how enthusiastic we were.  We had great plans.   We all wanted to go to Indonesia and help but knew it wasn’t possible.  In the end money was collected for food and water, medical or school supplies and soccer balls (to bring joy back into the children’s lives). So we gathered the money and sent it to World Vision for the tsunami victims.

Our group was really excited about what had happened.  After a lot of discussion we decided that we wanted to start our own  Charitable Organization.  A lot of this had to do with the media frenzie and questions being raised about what percentage of money was actually being donated to the tsunami victims out of the the funds generated through the Non-Governmental Organizations and how that money was being used.  We felt if we had our own organization we would make sure that one hundred percent of the money raised would be put towards the people and projects it was meant for.  After a lot of investigating and research, many meetings and much thought we decided that we could not become our own Charitable Organization.  It was far too much work, there were too many legal issues to deal with and most importantly we all worked full-time at jobs of our own.  In the end, we decided we would join forces with the Pastoral Care Team of the Church.  (This was a group that had travelled to Nicaragua previously.)  We figured any work we would do could be done under the “umbrella” of Knox Presbyterian Church, Elora.  Thereby allowing us to issue tax receipts.  This turned out to be the best decision we ever made.The two groups met together as a larger group and decided that we both had similar goals in mind.  We all agreed to work together.  Our first step was to come up with a mission.  A statement of sorts.  We needed to know that when we joined forces we would be contributing to important issues and making positive contributions to our community. The next step, give the group a better name.   A lot of suggestions were thrown out and the acronym that stuck was Kn.E.C.T.  Meaning, Knox Elora Care Team.  This was the best suggestion. Lawrie explained how he came up with this name. Basically, it was because of all the “Kn.E.C.T.ions” he was making in the Church, with the group, and around the community.   The group was sold and Kn.E.C.T. was formed.

Then we created our mission statement, “   Kn.E.C.T.ing with care in our community and afar.  “  So we had our people, our ideas and our name.  We just needed our projects and we would be in business.

Kn.E.C.T. decided to do a survey.  This survey would go out to the community and we would gather information on what kind of needs are in the community as well as what people thought needed to be done for international projects.   The surveys we gathered all said the same thing.  Look after people in your community and if there were any type of international aid,  people were interested in participating in building projects more than anything.   They wanted to do hands on projects.  As a group we decided that we should continue with the work that the Pastoral Care Team had started, after all, they had just recently returned from Nicaragua where they built a Church.  This was perfect.  We would work together to do work in our community and if possible do another international mission in Nicaragua.