Confirmation that mother-and-daughter team Shirley McIntyre and Meron Moroz should be featured as the column’s first heroes came with their reluctance to be “sung” at all — at least not without their team of fellow SOLID volunteers sharing the credit.

“We don’t get to be unsung heroes unless you guys are standing behind us, because that’s the way it works,” Moroz said during the photo, taken at a volunteer tea held at McIntyre’s home on Jan. 12.

The Saltspring Organization for Life Improvement and Development has around 20 volunteers, with eight core members committed to furthering its projects for people in sub-Saharan Africa. Moroz, who currently sits on the board and co-founded the SOLID Exchange retail outlet, first got involved as the organization’s bookkeeper. SOLID was preparing for a community conference and Moroz was renting a tiny office upstairs in the Creekside building above Apple Photo in 2003.

It was partly to do with timing: Moroz’s children were at an age that they didn’t really need her around all the time and her days running cubs’ and scouts’ troops were behind her.

“It was just somewhere else to channel energy and I really appreciated what they were doing and how they were doing it,” Moroz explained. “Then I had my first trip to Africa — and that was it.”