Habermehls Celebrate Three Milestones With One Project
The Reverend Dik Habermehl will have his 80th birthday May 17. His wife Marta had hers October 23. And this October they are celebrating their 55th anniversary.
There’s a lot of celebration in the cards, so the couple decided to have one big party on Saturday. And to make it a celebration for everyone, they are asking that, in lieu of gifts, well-wishers make donations to Northumberland Services For Women for the monument to be erected in Victoria Park in memory of women who lost their lives to domestic violence.
“We both agree about that,” the Reverend Habermehl said.
The Anti-Poverty Project (TAPP) has secured a site in Victoria Park, which he considered a major victory. Fundraising for the monument was taken over by the Northumberland Services For Women, and is now being done by the chapter of the White Ribbon Campaign the Reverend Habermehl set up locally.
“They have experience, and people know them, so they have credibility,” he said.
The cost is estimated to be at least $50,000, but he says fundraising is going pretty well.
“There seems to be a rule that, if you have a quarter of your budget, you can put out a call for artists - and we have that,” he said.
The actual call probably won’t go out until fall, giving the committee time to consider guidelines and criteria. All that is known for sure right now is that they want a Northumberland artist.
The Habermehls came to Cobourg from Winnipeg in 1985, when the Reverend Habermehl got a call to co-ordinate chaplaincy in the Region of Peterborough. They could live anywhere in the region, which stretched from Ajax to Kingston and north as far as Haliburton.
He had been a minister in Oshawa for 13 years previously, but his wife was all for settling down someplace new.
“It’s like starting all over again, a whole new chapter in your life,” she said.
Mrs. Habermehl had been an activation co-ordinator in a seniors’ home in Winnipeg, and she took similar positions at Legion Village and D’Arcy Place before being hired as activation director at Sidbrook Private Hospital. By the time that facility that closed in 2000, her husband had retired.
Mrs. Habermehl’s years with the Cobourg Garden Club have stood her in good stead in landscaping the rolling terrain of their home. And the Reverend Habermehl took on his own project in 2001 - the Northumberland Interfaith Coalition, whose members represent every faith from Aboriginal and Muslim to Baha’i and what are termed Free Spirits (a group that includes atheists).
It’s a thriving group that has begun such activities as interfaith explorations - taking a topic and looking it from the different faith perspectives.
“The means are different, the terms are different, but it’s basically the same spirituality,” the minister said. “Religion meets our basic needs, our emotional needs, our spiritual needs. We complement each other.”
The Habermehls’ daughter in Victoria, B.C., will not be able to make the party on Saturday, but their daughters in Cold Springs and Peterborough will be there, with some of their seven grown grandchildren.
It’s an open-house celebration, so everyone is welcome to drop in between 2 and 4 p.m. at Trinity United Church, 15 Chapel Street, Cobourg.
Tags: 13 years, 80th birthday, ajax, amp, arcy, co ordinator, dik, domestic violence, haliburton, kingston, Landscaping, minis, new chapter, northumberland, oshawa, peterborough, poverty project, rta, Services, tapp, victoria park, white ribbon campaign, winnipeg0
Saturday, May 17th, 2008
