What would you do if someone handed you $150 and told you to take it and go out and do something good for your community?
“I got a call to stop by the bank,” said Taylor Keizer of Musquodoboit Harbour. “I walk in, and they tell me RBC is celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday by giving young people $150 to improve their communities.” 
Keizer had no idea she had been selected. “At first, I didn’t know what I could do with this. I hemmed and hawed for a while. I thought about going to Timmy’s and paying the bills for the next bunch of orders. But then I thought I should do something bigger and better. And I thought about all the mental health problems we have, like the youth suicides.”
Keizer finally decided to sponsor a community fundraising Paint Nite. “I called my friend Anita [Carter-Rose] at Eastern Shore Mental Health and asked if they’d like to have a benefit Paint Night. This group offers volunteer peer support and specialized programs and services that aren’t easily accessible to members of our communities. They’re all volunteers, and they just warm my heart.”
Paint Nites are a form of social gathering where people get together for food and drinks, and to make their very own copies of a painting that the host has selected. “I’ve gone to a couple and I loved them,” Keizer said. “I emailed the Paint Nite site, and they sent me to a Dropbox page with all the paintings you could choose from. I loved the colours of the one I picked.”
