That Eastside Culture Crawl (ECCS) just keeps giving. I came across the pinafore project that Elisa and Jen were working on ,while touring studios in November, and was impressed with their community art project to celebrate Nellie Yip Quong. Here we are in January doing exactly that!

Who is Nellie?, you may be asking yourself. 851 Union was built in 1898 so it’s safe to say Nellie lived just a few blocks away on Pender St with her husband Charlie when this house was standing. If you’ve checked out the hyperlink (tapped onto the highlight of Nellies name in the paragraph above) the knowledge starts unfolding. Nellie was an activist/feminist and a woman ahead of her time (1882 - 1949). No doubt the more one finds out about Nellie the more inspired and impressed we become: she was justly designated a Person of National Historic Significance, even if it took almost 60 years after she passed for that to happen.

Elisa and Jen helped celebrate Nellie through their community art project which culminated with a group of us wearing our pinafores at the Women’s march on Saturday January 19th, 2019. We met in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery at the new open plaza and listened to stories of inspiring women and marched on in support of the work that still needs to be done.

Nellie’s grand daughter, Starlet, wanted to join in with the march but unfortunately was held back with health issues. We were happy to represent and celebrate her along with Nellie at the march. Hope you enjoy this video shedding light on a bit of Strathcona history.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-WRZNHxKRF8