2014 Communities ChooseWell Registration Open!

Registration for the 2014 edition of the Communities ChooseWell program is now open, and it's free!

What is ChooseWell? 
It's a healthy eating, active living initiative that helps support your community or organization enhance wellness through education, partnerships and capacity building. Communities ChooseWell is funded by Alberta Health and managed by the Alberta Recreation and Parks Association.

How does Communities ChooseWell support community wellness?
• Resource toolkit supports public education, promotion and participation
• Funding opportunity supports healthy eating or active living initiatives
• Webinars and other educational opportunities for local wellness champions
• Provincial challenges provide ready-made ideas and opportunities to engage residents
• Networking and sharing of ideas between communities
• Recognition for effort and achievements in creating a healthier community

The early bird deadline is January 31! Take advantage of being drawn for a number of great prizes.

Learn more about ChooseWell and register by click here!

Eckville Continues to Build Community Through Partnerships

‘Building a Community of Choice for Family Through Partnerships’ is the motto of the Eckville Community Development Association (ECDA). This commitment to partnerships is what led Eckville to apply to be an ACE Community in 2008. Using their ACE seed funding, in combination with other funds also raised through partnering, Eckville not only hired the town’s first-ever Recreation Director, they also created the town’s Recreation Plan.

Flash forward to 2013 and Eckville is happy to report that the results from this partnership with ARPA has just kept growing! The Town of Eckville has recently committed $20,000 to help maintain the Recreation Director’s position for an additional two years.

“Creating a strong sense of community and including all citizens in meaningful and enjoyable recreational opportunities will greatly enhance the quality of life in our community,” says former ECDA board member Amy Cunningham.

Ongoing work towards establishing a local Spray Park has also been successful, seeing the Town not only approving a site but also committing to its upkeep. The Recreation Board has also recently received notice that a Community Facility Enhancement Program (CFEP) grant for the Spray Park has been approved which is quite the achievement seeing that the community itself had to raise matching funds in order to qualify for the grant.  The CFEP also recently funded some renovations of the Eckville Community Center.  These successes reflect the power of a community working together on prioritized goals to enhance the community for everyone.

“We have ARPA and ACE to thank for this,” says Karin Engen, Coordinator at Eckville Neighborhood Place. “ACE facilitated our community to consult citizens, identified a community need, and then helped us work together to achieve our goal.”

Innisfail is going strong!

A shout out to INNISFAIL whose pulled citizens together in their "Envision Innisfail" Planning. This has resulted in accomplishments that just keep on coming and coming.

Of note are their much appreciated off leash dog park (for our canine community members!), Neighbourhood Block Party Toolkit, Green and Clean Community Clean Up (500 community members participated!) and community gardens. Meeting places and gathering spaces, in fact, seem to be the theme for Innisfail with their earlier Dr. Greg Ritson-Bennett Park redevelopment (total budget was $113,000) and a planned downtown Community Gathering area (a $538,000 project).

It is also significant to note that the Town’s Envision Innisfail project and a youth leader from Innisfail were 2011 Recipients for the Alberta’s Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Leadership. Keep up the great work, Innisfail!

ACE Communities featured in Apple Magazine

Check out this feature in the Alberta Health Services magazine apple. Highlighted in the latest May/June issue were the activities of eight ACE Communities.

Click here and scroll to page 45 to see what’s happening in Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation, Cold Lake, Hinton, Killam, Irricana, Longview, Vulcan, and Wainwright.

We love that the word is getting out there about the FANTASTIC things happening in rural Alberta!

Didsbury Talks

Healthy Didsbury is pleased to announce a new community initiative: “Didsbury Talks!” and the hiring of our “Didsbury Talks!” Coordinator: Lyle Schulz.

“Didsbury Talks!” is a two year series of theme -based community cafes designed to intentionally bring together community organizations and the citizens in Didsbury. The goal is to create a welcoming forum for engaged and authentic, action-oriented conversations about topics that are relevant to the people of Didsbury. The cafes become the catalysts for generating ideas, identifying necessary actions and connecting with community members who are enthusiastic about the specific theme. At the completion of each café, action plans and follow-up activities will be created to assist community leaders, organizations and residents to move great ideas into major actions.

Thanks to the generous support of ACE Communities of Alberta Recreation and Parks Association, Healthy Didsbury has hired Lyle Schulz as the Community Café Coordinator. Lyle brings diverse skills and experiences to the initiative, including electronic media, community engagement, marketing and graphic design. He will be working closely with Healthy Didsbury for the planning and implementation of the upcoming community cafes. Healthy Didsbury is thrilled that Lyle has decided to accept this challenging and rewarding role.

Background:

Healthy Didsbury is a coalition of community members and organizations working towards a long range vision for a Healthy Didsbury. This group grew out of a public forum in January, 2008 that was hosted by the Town of Didsbury, the Rosebud Health Foundation and the former Calgary Health Region (now Alberta Health Services). Since that first public forum, the group has been quietly working to develop a vision and action plan for Didsbury. Our vision for Didsbury is a healthy, safe and involved community. Our mission is to facilitate wellness through community involvement, partnership and action. In 2009, Didsbury was selected as an ACE (Active, Creative, Engaged) Partner Community. This two year partnership focused on enhancing the quality of life in rural communities by strengthening community leadership, collaboration, and innovation through recreation, parks, arts, culture and heritage. One of the fundamental purposes of ACE is to recognize and help develop sustainable leadership using a grass roots or community driven approach.

The Trochu Journey

At the one year anniversary of our exciting "Ignite Tour", our town is feeling the impact of the ACE experience. Since our last newsletter reporting, we have seen an active Fall of serious planning, grant applications and fundraising by our pro-active Trails team including individual donations, Town, and corporate/businesses. There are high expectations once the matching grant process is complete!

The Skateboard Park and Family Fun Centre groups are realizing slower momentum, and the benefit of merging all efforts toward making the Trails project a single priority at this time, harnessing all this learning and experience for a future time when these projects are in the works!

The news of our designation as “The Pinkest Little Town in the West” was received in October which recognized the outstanding participation and community involvement in raising the most money during the 14 day "Wild Pink Yonder Ride" for breast cancer. This announcement coincided nicely with the ARPA Jasper Conference where we could share the good news. The Community Building segment was well done by the 11 ACE Communities who contributed their heart-warming stories. I am delighted to see the Trochu Journey six-minute video featured on the ACE Communities website…looks great there!

We have a community gathering booked for January 5, 2011 as a very fitting year- to- the-day reunion where we will have everyone back together for an update and to hear their valuable feedback. Future events are already in the works starting with a New Year’s Eve traditional fireworks display to kick-off what promises to be the best Centennial celebrations ever!

Trochu marks 100 years and we have more community leaders coming forward to help plan this party than ever before. We will update on this as the year unfolds but will just mention that our 2010 ACE Movie in the Park event, promises to be an annual close of school blast for our kids. It is booked to go again as part of the Centennial plans for 2011 and beyond… stay tuned for more exciting plans throughout our big year!

In closing, I think it is worth mentioning that an unprecedented four women ran in the municipal election in Trochu this past fall; two with success at the polls. Personally, I must attribute some of the decision to make this step, to the encouragement and positivity I have felt throughout the ACE experience. Our community, strong and progressive in many ways already, has definitely become even more cohesive, with leadership starting to emerge anew. Our communities will go where we lead and the more tools and skills we can gather and use to this end, the better for all

Update from ACE Leader Val in Trochu