A Daly Tribute

By Claude Gauthier, GROWMARK Ontario Region manager

Bernie Daly
GROWMARK Ontario Region Manager
2004-2009

The opening article in this newsletter used to be called Daly Notes and was filled with the late Bernie Daly’s personal accounts on special events and important topics that he wanted to share with you. He took pride in sending you the Your Ontario Vision newsletter and saw this as a very important tool to keep us all up to speed with what is going on with the GROWMARK Ontario Region, its FS member co-ops, partners and subsidiaries, our youth programs and the co-operative sector. Since the passing of Bernie Daly this spring, so much has happened in the way of keeping his presence alive and honouring all that he stood for in our organizations and communities.
I was honoured to be a part of the recent Ontario Co-operative Association Gala and Spirit Awards and felt especially privileged to have the opportunity to present the Ontario Co-operative Lifetime Achievement Award recognizing Bernie for his 30 years of commitment to the co-operative agriculture sector.
Accepting the Ontario Co-operative Lifetime Achievement Award for the late Bernie Daly are Bernie’s sons and wife, Matt (L), Sandy and Ryan. Claude Gauthier presented the award to the Daly family.

At the On Co-op Gala we were pleased to announce that so far more than $37,000 has been raised towards the development of the Co-operative Young Leaders program through the Bernie Daly Memorial Fund. Youth development was very important to Bernie and one of his goals before he passed was to find a way to help support CYL in a bigger way. The monies collected for the fund will first ensure that every young person that wants to attend camp will have the opportunity to do so. Secondly, funds will be used to enhance the program with new equipment or innovative programs. Thank you to all who contributed and please note that the fund will be ongoing and is always open for donations going forward. Organizations or individuals in all co-op sectors are invited to participate in the Bernie Daly Memorial Fund. Through an arrangement with the Ontario Credit Charitable Foundation, all donations are tax deductible. To download a contribution form, visit http://www.ontario.coop/. For more information, contact Sonja Carriere at On Co-op at 519-763-8271 x29.

This spring we also finished what Bernie had begun by finalizing the transistion of FS PARTNERS and its 22 locations to becoming a division of GROWMARK after the majority of farmer-members of Waterloo-Oxford Co-operative and Inland Co-operative voted to sell substantially all their assets to GROWMARK.

At the same time, GROWMARK saw an opportunity to build on an existing partnership and increased its financial commitment and level of partnership in Great Lakes Grain, including the addition of its FS PARTNERS’ branded grain sites throughout southwestern and central Ontario.

Under this partnership between GROWMARK and AGRIS Co-operative, Great Lakes Grain is now one of the largest grain merchandising companies in Ontario. The new organization has a 60-per-cent increase in capacity and a trade area stretching from Windsor through Toronto and to north of Georgian Bay, offering grain marketing services on a wide range of commodities to area farmers.

These recent moves underline GROWMARK’s commitment and Bernie Daly's dedication to the Ontario co-op system for the long term.