While Christmas Day may have passed by a little too quickly, some residents in the City of Cambridge are still celebrating in their own way. After all, the holidays aren’t really over until the New Year officially begins.

With Christmas being a time for cheer and goodwill, one unidentified person in the city still chooses to ignore the season’s significance, and has been busy looting the doors & porches of homes and businesses alike.

Policemen in the city have warned the public—specifically homeowners and couriers—to be wary of a Grinch-like thief whose modus operandi is to steal packages left by messengers and couriers in the porches of homes scattered across the city.

The warning was issued after a resident reported a suspicious individual who tried to take a package delivered by a local courier. According to the homeowner, he heard someone walking on the porch and saw a man looking for the package. The thief ran off after the homeowner dashed to the porch.

Police have learned that this incident is only one of many reports from Cambridge and other neighboring areas.

With many busy enjoying the holiday festivities in their homes, police are advising residents to keep a look-out for suspicious persons who may want to take advantage of the relaxed atmosphere the season brings.

After a long period of waiting, the Cambridge Chaplin YMCA finally received funds for the renovation and upgrade of its facility along Hespeler Road.

The Governments of Canada and Ontario recently announced striking a partnership with Cambridge’s YMCA to improve the Chaplin Family facility. Both governments will be making an investment worth $1,030,000 – with the purpose of creating more jobs in the City of Cambridge, at the same time improving the YMCA’s amenities and energy consumption.

Announcing the new deal were Members of Parliament Hon. Gary Goodyear and the Hon. John Milloy, along with YMCA Cambridge’s CEO John Haddock, and Chairperson of the Cambridge YMCA Board of Directors, Laurie Hornell.

According to these officials, the investment is meant to provide Cambridge residents with access to recreational activities like basketball, swimming, and more. The soon-to-be renovated facility is also expected to generate employment opportunities.

The project to rehabilitate YMCA Cambridge is slated to start sometime in the first quarter of 2010. Among the upgrades include new lights for the parking lot. This is to maximize the facility’s energy efficiency – helping reduce the electric bill in the process. In addition, YMCA will sport a new finish that assures the facility will last for years.

Looks like folks from Cambridge have something to look forward to next year.

With Christmas just around the corner and the year coming close to an end, volunteers from the Cambridge Memorial Hospital Foundation have been very busy opening letters and sorting donations for Cambridge’s Trees of Caring fund.

According to the foundation’s Executive Director Ingrid Town, she and her pack of volunteers receive around 9 to 10 thousand letters with donations everyday. And with each day getting closer to Christmas, she expects that number to get even higher.

And yet with the horde of letters coming in non-stop, Town still holds some worries about the foundation not making the goal of raising $200,000 this year. With less then a week to go before the Big Day, the foundation has just made the halfway mark at $108,000.

The yearly Trees of Caring campaign is a fundraiser that encourages people to donate $10 to help light up one of three massive Christmas trees in front of Cambridge Memorial Hospital. Hospital patients see the three evergreens as a source of happiness; and doctors as well nurses understand that the trees do have a way of lifting their sprits.

Due to tough economic times, the foundation, like most charities in the country, has been affected significantly, with less people being able to set aside money for donations.

Right now the foundation is appealing to the public to help out their cause. Fortunately, an anonymous person was kind enough to step up to the plate and donate $5000.

Town hopes this is just the start of a good run before Christmas finally arrives.

Cambridge’s firefighters may be used to the hard and dangerous task of killing fires on a regular basis, but their toughest challenge for this year comes with the annual Cambridge Firefighters’ Basket Fund campaign.

Each year, Cambridge firefighters work in cooperation with the Salvation Army and Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank to make Christmas special for the less fortunate. Each faction receives a separate list of families to help, with the firefighters assigned to give families with 3 or 4 people free hampers and other necessities.

This year the firefighters find themselves overwhelmed with the number of families in need. From 480 families last year, that number has jumped to 638 today – and it’s expected that the number of families needing help will continue to rise over the next few days.

According to Platoon Chief and campaign organizer Walter MacNeil, his squad of firefighters are in serious need of help.

And that’s exactly what they received when Cambridge residents stepped up and pitched in on the cause.

You too can help Cambridge’s firefighters by dropping off toys, non-perishable food items, clothes, and other necessities to any Cambridge fire station. For cash and cheque donations, head to the Cambridge Fire Department headquarters.

The City of Cambridge has its own unofficial list of bad roads and intersections that have earned complaints from the city’s locals.

The good news is that a new program is now in the works, with the aim of correcting these problems, and improving the safety of drivers and commuters in Cambridge.

Just recently, City Officials have released an updated report on the plan’s progress.
During discussions of the new program, city engineers and their staff looked up traffic volume on certain areas, collisions and accidents, and road characteristics to put up a streamlined system designed to monitor street safety.

Shannon Noonan, who is the manager of the city’s transportation engineering department, says that 10 corners and 10 road sections have been identified and marked as priority projects once funding is made possible.

Three new projects are now slated to begin in August next year to improve road safety while another one developed by the Waterloo region is for the installation of new traffic lights.

2010 looks to be exciting for Cambridge once these projects take off. With the region finally taking a pro-active stance on road safety, local drivers and commuters can rest easy while plying the roads of Cambridge.

To increase police presence in the region that includes Cambridge, a plan was set forth by the Waterloo Regional Police at a regular budget meeting that was held just recently. The plan called for the recruitment of 20 new police offers for the year 2010.

In a move that was considered controversial by some, Police Chief Matt Torigian requested for more officers next year, even with talks of cutting back the police force’s budget for 2010 taking place earlier.

Furthermore, Chief Torigian also requested to add 24 civilian staff between the months of May and November. According to him, Waterloo’s police officers are spending too much time answering phone calls instead of patrolling the streets, preventing crime, and keeping an eye on traffic.

Councilors in the region however, are hesitant to allocate a budget for hiring new staff. The economic crisis according to them, has affected the region significantly, and tax revenues are almost at a record low. They also note Cambridge and its surrounding areas have the fourth fourth-lowest crime rate in Canada.

Chief Torigian understands this, he said. He commented that the police have already reduced their budget. However, he says there is a need for more officers to make the police force run more efficiently.

A few weeks back, local residents in Cambridge commented on the tolerable (almost nice actually) weather, hoping for it to continue over until the start of the New Year. Mother Nature however, had other plans as the winter season finally made its presence fully felt in the city.

In November, the city of Cambridge tied the standing record for the least amount of snowfall in the area, but all that has changed in the past few days as the city has had a spike in vehicular accidents (over 108 in fact) due to bad weather, with 15 of them causing significant injuries and other last minute adjustments and cancellations in the city.

Authorities have urged the public to make preparations and changes to their cars and driving habits, with many caught unaware by the sudden shift in weather.

The accidents are largely attributed to the fact that Cambridge has been lucky enough to be spared from the onslaught other Ontario cities have been experiencing over the past few weeks. The sudden snow storm has caught many individuals off-guard.

According to public affairs coordinator for the Waterloo Regional Police Olaf Heinzel, people need to slow down, brake more often, and adjust to the road hazards brought about by Old Man Winter’s arrival.

With both demand and supplies of H1N1 vaccines decreasing, health officials in the Ontario region are preparing to give away the last batch of immunizations, and are currently in the planning stage for the final round of flu clinics, with one located in Cambridge.

According to Lu-Ann Procter, coordinator of communications for the Waterloo Region’s Public Health office, health officials want to end the year with a sigh of relief, using this opportunity to promote efforts to stop the spread of the dreaded disease.

For the city of Cambridge, vaccines for the common flu and influenza A-H1N1 will be given away on a clinic that is set to open on December 14, from 2 in the afternoon to 8 in the evening. The clinic will be held at Jacob Hespeler Secondary School, situated along 355 Holiday Inn Drive.

And while vaccinations will still be given away in the new year, they can only be recieved from local physicians and hospitals – as free clinics might no longer be held in 2010, this according to health authorities in the region.

To get more information on H1N1 immunization clinics in the area, you can log on to the Waterloo Region Pandemic site at www.waterlooregionpandemic.ca.

With winter in the air, you might want to check out a little haven of warmth in Cambridge serves as a quick getaway from the bitter cold.

According to Adrienne Brewster, The Wings of Paradise Butterfly Conservatory stays at a nice 25 degrees (Celsius), even on the coldest of winter days. The site is complete with lush waterfalls, blooming flowers, and butterflies from all over the world.

The place attracts dozens of photographers in Cambridge and its surrounding areas, with some staying for hours in search of that elusive perfect picture. Visitors to the conservatory can stroll around and enjoy the atmospher.

The Butterfly Conservatory plays home to thousands of live flying butterflies imported from tropical countries like Costa Rica and the Philippines. It also houses more than 75 tropical plants, fish and other species of animal life.

An insect gallery with a real hive honeybees can also be seen in the site, giving visitors the chance to watch how a hive of bees work seamlessly – with a queen laying eggs and workers making honey. Aside from bees, a thousand species of bugs and insects can also be observed in Insects of the World gallery.

So, go ahead and pay a visit to the conservatory. Chill out (or rather, warm up) and enjoy the sights and sounds, you’ll surely have a time to remember.

Residents in Cambridge who contributed to the peace of the community were recently awarded in a ceremony coinciding with the YMCA World Peace Week. The awards ceremony was held at Cambridge hall, attended by the youth, as well as other individuals and groups who serve as role models to society.

Recipients of the YMCA peace medallions included Brandon Wieschollek, honored in the strong kid category, John MacDonald, recognized in the strong role model category, and the Zuluaga family, honored in the strong community category.

The awardees have done amazing work ranging from organizing activities aimed at guiding the youth, teaching kids different sports and games,, shielding teens from gangs, and offering free and vital services to the public like electrical repairs and plumbing.

These individuals serve as an inspiration to residents not just in Cambridge, but all over Canada as well. The work these people have done reminds us of our responsibility to also give back to society in any way possible.

If this is the first time you’ve head of the peace awards, you can log on to www.ymcacambridge.com for additional info on past winners, and the activities they participated in. You can also check out if you’ve got what it takes to win a peace medallion yourself.