Dignitaries from across North America were in St. Albert last weekend to recognize the many contributions of the Bocock family.
Some 100 people were at the St. Albert United Church Sunday for a tribute to the Bocock family that saw St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron present Bill, John and Jenny Bocock with certificates of appreciation.
The Bococks are a Sturgeon County farm family known for their philanthropy, community involvement, and social and environmental advocacy. They sold 777 acres of their farm to the University of Alberta in 2008 at a fraction of its value to create what is now the St. Albert Research Station, and paid for most of the $50,000 solar array that sits atop the St. Albert United Church.
All too often, we don’t recognize what a person does for a community until after they’ve died, said event host Stephen Fitzpatrick. The Bococks support a long list of people and organizations and have strong ties to St. Albert United, and the church decided it was past time to pay tribute to them.
“Talk to anyone about the Bococks and you will hear words like selflessness, spirituality, communication, co-operation, reconciliation, stewardship,” he said.
“They are a group of people who exemplify the axiom to be the change you want to see in the world.”
Many tributes
In an interview, John said much of the Bococks’ current approach to life started in 1958 when he and Bill met a group of farmers on tour with the spiritual movement Moral Rearmament. The group’s main message was that if you wanted to see a change in the world, you had to start with yourself – a message that resonated with him, as he’d been treating Bill poorly.
John said he apologized to Bill for “being a self-righteous rascal” and struck up a new partnership with him. The two of them and (later) their wives Jenny and Phyllis all became active members of Moral Rearmament, which let them meet people around the world.
Family friend Rod Burnstick said the Bococks became close friends with five generations of his family through that group, with Jenny in particular becoming a fierce advocate for Indigenous rights.
“If there was an injustice happening, she had no qualms about writing a letter to the Prime Minister,” Burnstick said.
Burnstick told the crowd that the family’s efforts to reach out to and stand up for Indigenous peoples made the Bococks a catalyst for reconciliation.
“You’ve had a tremendous impact on my grandkids, and I’m grateful and I thank you,” he told the Bococks.
Bill and his late wife Phyllis had close ties to India and established a youth scholarship in Nagaland, India, that’s still running today, Rachel de Vos (Bill’s niece) told the crowd. She recalled how on one family trip to India, the cook in their host home nearly kissed Phyllis’s feet in gratitude – he had been a member of the “untouchable” caste, but because Phyllis taught him to cook decades before, he had been able to get a good job and send his kids to school.
“She had materially ended in this one family intergenerational poverty.”
John and Jenny said they became interested in sustainable agriculture from seeing Ethiopian farmers struggle to scratch out a living on rocky soils.
“Having been in Africa and Asia, you realize there’s millions of people that have to be fed,” Jenny said.
Today, the land the Bococks gifted to the U of A helps produce new varieties of wheat and canola to boost food security, and the Bococks themselves are often called upon to speak to students and alumni, said Stan Blade, dean of the faculty of agricultural, life and environmental science.
This land gift will support the ethical, sustainable food production Canada needs to feed the world, Heron said.
“We need more people like the Bococks really invested in the care of the land.”
The Bococks thanked the church members for organizing the weekend event and for their commitment to environmental and social justice issues.
Jenny said her message to others was that life was about more than just making money.
“It’s really about caring for God’s creation. We need to be stewards of it.”
