40 Years of Caring a Brief History of the Victoria Cool Aid Society

40 Years of Caring A Brief History of the Victoria Cool Aid Society by Helen Edwards, Edwards Heritage Consulting Copyright © 2009, Victoria Cool Aid Society 40 Years of Caring: Brief History of Cool Aid The 1960s 2 40 Years of Caring: Brief History of Cool Aid Cool Aid formally began at a and/or North American religious meeting on June 10, 1968 but its culture, and were at odds with roots go farther back – to the Fall of traditional middle class Western 1965 when a group of students at values. Young people of the time felt Victoria High School, members of strongly about Civil Rights and the Philosopher’s Club, later known opposed the Vietnam War. Many as the Monday Club, wanted to Americans came to Canada to operate a peace club. Denied escape the military draft. All over the permission to run the club through world, young people were travelling, the school, they organized the Peace usually with very little money. In Action League as an outside group. Canada, Pierre Trudeau, favourite of In September 1966 the group was the young, became Prime Minister at reorganized as the Victoria Youth a groovy, swinging Liberal Project of the Company of Young convention in 1968. The focus Canadians. One of the prominent everywhere was on the young members of the Philosophy Club because they were so loud, so was Charles Barber, later to become insolent, so numerous. Newspaper one of the co-founders of Cool Aid. 1 columnists laboured to explain “what the kids are saying.” Students manipulated television news whenever they seized public buildings or campuses. 2These people were visionaries that pushed for things that we now take for granted, things like women’s rights. 3 The time was ripe for an organization Cool Aid's early days. Charles Barber on like Cool Aid to be founded and to try right. Lynn Curtis collection to help. In order to understand how The Victoria Youth Council the young people felt, it is important (VYC) was organized with a list of to consider the times in which they things that needed to be done. The were growing up. The hippie young people felt adults did not subculture began in the United understand the problems of youth. States in the early 1960s and spread They were a group with a sense that around the world. Hippies renounced they were misunderstood by society corporate nationalism and embraced and were planning to do something aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, about it. Their goal was to get 3 40 Years of Caring: Brief History of Cool Aid somebody elected to City Council. were many another groups that They did better than that: Charles sponsored concerts on Sundays as Barber eventually became an MLA. well. The first Love-in in Beacon Hill They also believed that everybody Park was held on May 1, 1967 and has the right to have their dreams was called “one of the strangest met. VYC members helped the gatherings Victoria had seen since seniors at the Silver Threads centre, quiet Sunday afternoons in the park showing compassion for others. for the masses were done away with They also helped draft dodgers and by the advent of the automobile.” 5 deserters. Actually, they helped By August, another Love-in was people do whatever it was they cancelled by acting Mayor Robert wanted to do. They even helped a Baird. When a group of “sixty hippies young man enlist in the military, as invaded City Hall” to get him to that is what he wanted to do. change his mind, he said he had “no love to offer” because he thought their conduct was not socially acceptable. The “hippies” had used Centennial Square during the summer and Baird admitted they had broken no laws, so “it was impossible to have police whip them Victoria Youth Council meeting. out of the square or firemen flush Lynn Curtis collection 6 them out with hoses.” The group worked at organizing educational events of The first meetings were held which music was a large part. on Wark Street, then 1527 Amelia Musicians have been involved with Street. In early August, the VYC politics since the 1960s social began to meet every Sunday at UVic movements, says music historian at 2 o’clock. Whoever showed up Alan Cross. “Back in the ‘60s, with constituted the current membership the hippie movement and the whole of the VYC. All decisions were made peace and love thing, the Vietnam by consensus with agenda items War was turned into a tremendous written on a blackboard. The galvanizing experience for youth meetings lasted until all the agenda culture,” he says. 4 In Victoria, music items had been discussed and voted was always a part of the VYC scene on. Items on which no action had according to Lynn Curtis. Beacon Hill been taken by the following week Park was the site of “big happenings” were discarded unless they were on Sundays in the afternoon. There added to the current agenda.. This 4 40 Years of Caring: Brief History of Cool Aid had the effect of focussing the efforts to a social pattern established by of the group and ensuring that their and in our present education system ideas and projects remained current. and an attempt to revise the present concepts of ‘teaching’ and to put these into practice.” 7 Also in the mid-1960s, the federal government was responding to the needs of youth with the establishment of the Company of Young Canadians with a mandate to encourage social, economic and community development in Canada. Promised in the Speech from the Throne on April 5,1965 and formally established on June 10, 1966, 8 the Company of Young Canadians (CYC), recruited young Canadians, trained them in “social animation” techniques and sent them out to work for a moderate salary on community programs across the country. Martlet Magazine, October 20, 1966 Cool Aid archives In March 1966, Stewart Goodings spoke to students at the Their first action was the University of Victoria and said The renting of a thirteen-room house at Company of Young Canadians 1054 McGregor Street where the would attempt to use new tactics for Social Education Centre was solving the old problems within founded. Based on the idea of the Canada. He noted, “A pilot program Free Universities of New York and with 250 volunteers will start this Seattle, Rochdale College in Toronto summer. This initial program would and San Francisco, it offered focus its attention on the Canadian courses such as politics, religion, Indian, downtown slums, adult and education. According to the education, school dropouts, and Centre’s first calendar, “The centre delinquency. In the field volunteers was founded as an experiment in would receive living expense only. social communication, an alternative After serving two years, they would 5 40 Years of Caring: Brief History of Cool Aid receive an honorarium. Orientation conventional way this periods before service in the field unconventional kind of and evaluation periods during honesty.” 11 The publication was service would provide the volunteers under constant threat from adults with ideas and suggestions on the who felt its material went beyond the techniques of community borders of decency, but the editors development.” 9 were able to refute all charges. One radio broadcaster said: “Youth One of the volunteers was doesn’t have the experience or the Lynn Curtis, the son of a Vancouver understanding to take responsibility.” elementary school principal, who had WinePress was a representation of its been a UVic student that year. After times in which youth felt alienated the initial training session in Nova from mainstream society and felt Scotia at which he was elected the powerless to make any meaningful chairman of the group, 10 he returned changes. The Social Education to Victoria to continue working on the Centre eventually self-destructed development of a youth project in because it attempted to serve too Victoria. According to the October many interests and too many 29, 1966 newsletter of the Victoria different groups of youth, including Project, the Social Education Centre some very destructive ones, using was not yet an accepted project of an approach that was too the CYC although Lynn Curtis is unstructured. By the end of listed as a CYC volunteer on its November, it was gone. Cool Aid administration directory. He was also had a small office in James Bay on the author of the “Basic Plan for Niagara Street, just east of Menzies. Organizing a Free School System for That is where the WinePress had Victoria, B. C.” that outlined the been started and was the concept of alternative schools that headquarters of the Victoria Youth would help high school-aged Council, conveniently close to students and adults develop classes Beacon Hill Park. 12 outside the mainstream education system. The Social Education Centre All work done by the Victoria also published an alternative Youth Council was under the banner magazine, The Winepress that was a of The Victoria Project. The group “free and honest forum for young produced regular newsletters to people who want to express their update people on their activities, idea of what the real is all about. including benefit dances, [They provided] an alternative to a “happenings” at Bastion Square, society that does not permit in the regular meetings of the Youth 6 40 Years of Caring: Brief History of Cool Aid Council, and plans for a Youth have some positive impact on Centre. Meetings were also attended Victoria City Council as they were by supportive adults who gave the made aware of the struggles of group credibility in dealing with young people in uncertain times and government bodies.

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