A good old trip down memory lane

The ALS Society of Canada hosted an evening of nostalgia at the USW Steelworkers Hall on Oct. 27. The fundraising event brought in a total of $1,100 for the ALS Society.

Guests were treated to a slide show of more than 150 images of Sudbury through the decades, all of which came from the personal collection of event organizer Brigitte Labby.

Labby, the northeast Ontario regional manager with ALS Society of Canada, has been collecting the photos for more than two years.

“I found a lot of them online through ebay, as well as through libraries and old newspaper stories,” said Labby. “ It's just a hobby for me but I thought it would be nice to share these with the residents of Sudbury.”

Photos of old hotels, theatres, banks and more panned by on the projection screens while Labby quizzed the audience as to their locations and names of the buildings pictured.

Labby has lived in Sudbury since 1997, but was a one time Azilda resident before moving out west in the 1980's.

The changes that she noticed to Sudbury in her absence were a source of inspiration for this photo collection.

“Even when I came back to Sudbury from living out west I noticed so many differences in the city,” said Labby. “I think my favourite photo is the one of old Centennial Park, there used to be coins there and totem poles and none of that is there anymore.”

The fundraiser is one of only a small number that go towards ALS research and Labby says that there needs to be more done year round.

“We have the ice bucket challenge in the summer which was hugely successful but we need to keep up the effort,” she said. “We have our walk for ALS in June, 2016 in Sudbury.”

Labby plans to do these types of photo tours with other communities in northern Ontario and she has already started to collect photos for other communities like Timmins and North Bay.

For more on the ALS Society of Canada, visit www.als.ca