Brentwood People in Your Neighbourhood for March

Books, Bees, and Bikes

by Lee Hunt

There are so many kind and sharing people in Brentwood. People who expend considerable energy and caring in helping others. Two such dynamic individuals are Laura and Chris Grant.

Laura and Chris have lived in Brentwood since 2005. It wasn’t long before Cheri Macaulay easily convinced them to install a Little Free Library in their front yard. The LFL is well used by neighbours to both donate and take books.

In 2006, Laura wrote a carbon offset proposal called “Weapons of Grass Destruction”, which the Federal Government is considering as policy, so we may well hear more about it in the future. In the following year, this led to Laura and Chris’ putting in considerable physical labour to convert their front lawn into a carpet of native species. They also converted their back yard “into a garden with heritage raspberries, haskap, a strawberry path, and a playhouse. Add to that large water collectors and a compost”.

The plentiful plants soon attracted numerous bees. This in turn led to a knock on the door by Norm, the owner of Brisebois Bees. Since so many of the bees were spending time at Chris and Laura’s gardens, might they be interested in having a few hives in their yard? The answer was a resounding “yes”. They now have 2 hives in their yard to welcome the bees.

And then there are the bikes! In 2010, the pair had bad experiences buying and selling bikes from their garage and saw too much “creative cycling” on their daily year-round cycling commutes. Consequently, they decided to start a safe place to buy/sell/donate bikes and to fund safe cycling. Laura and Chris do all the background operations including logistics, food, accounting, begging for grants, and marketing. Chris, an engineer, designed and patented bike racks, while Laura (who is in tech) designed and copyrighted bike swap software. Many of the repaired bikes are given away to such groups as Woods Homes, McMan Services, Bicycles for Humanity, Two Wheel View, and the Chinook Kiwanis Club. The goal is “to help anyone we can with transportation security”. Laura told me that in total they “have 92 strategic alliances that we work with in some capacity.”

Each spring, some 180 volunteers join Laura and Chris in selling the other repaired bikes at the Alberta Bike Swap. Since 2011, they have hosted one Swap in Calgary and one in Edmonton. The sale itself has now outgrown many spaces. Profits over the 14 years have gone to numerous different charities, one of which is Brentwood Cares. Cam of that group told me, “The Bike Swap is a massive contribution to Calgary… the Grants also donate a bike annually to the Calgary Food Bank Auction in the CBC Make the Season Kind Campaign”.

Both Chris and Laura are lifelong cyclists – in fact, they first met while riding their bikes. Laura was a year-round bike commuter for nearly 55 years but broke her back so can no longer ride. Chris is a certified cycling master instructor with CAN-BIKE, the only recognized and standardized cycling education program in Canada.

When asked why Chris and Laura are so involved in community endeavours, Laura told me that, “We both believe that the bicycle is the right tool for health and the environment. We both believe that books are the right tool for critical thinking, education, and discovery. We both believe that bees are the right tool as environment indicators, as pollinators, and food provider security.”

Such a dedicated duo! Kudos to Laura and Chris Grant for their generous contributions to Brentwood, to Calgary, and to our province at large.

Should you wish to support Chris and Laura by donating books, bikes, or time, please contact them at: [email protected].

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