HARDISTY, Alta. – Keeping communities from falling apart might seem like a monumental task, but those attending a rural ministry retreat all found one thing they could do to make a difference.
Robert Taylor of Blairmore, Alta., pledged to develop a community garden. When Taylor and his wife moved to the Crowsnest Pass community a few months ago, he was told food bank hampers were only passed out once a year.
“What do they do for the other 364 days of the year?”
When he looked around he saw plenty of older people with gardening experience, lots of land along the CP Rail right-of-way that runs through the Pass and young people with energy to look after a garden.
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“I can see a whole series of things. The older people at senior’s homes could come out for a half an hour to help moms with their kids turn the earth,” said Taylor.
In the next few months his goal is to get a group of people together to help organize a gardening project.
“I bet there are people who’d love to take their kids there,” said Taylor.
Karen Roppel of Rockyford said her goal was to stop the slow deterioration of the grain handling facilities in her farming community. At one time there were five grain elevators in Rockyford. Now there are only two Alberta Wheat Pool elevators and they seem to be slowly falling apart.
Hampered by regulations
Roppel said they were given a vague promise by the pool to add several steel grain bins to the existing facility. Nothing has happened and now they can no longer buy fertilizer or chemical there because of new storage regulations.
“One brick at a time we’re being dismantled,” said her husband Howard.
Roppel pledged during the three-day conference to create a questionnaire asking farmers if they wanted to keep their grain facilities. The results would be taken to the pool’s district meeting.
“The idea is to let the wheat pool know how they feel. You have to go to that meeting armed with that knowledge,” she said.
Religion a barrier
Her husband pledged to break down the wall between the Roman Catholic and the United Church members of the community. Like many small communities Rockyford had a public and Catholic school system. While many people in the community farmed near each other, they never socialized because of the church barrier.
Fifteen years ago the almost new Catholic school closed down. About the same time, the community wanted to build a community centre. Someone suggested using the now-closed Catholic school. Together the entire community worked to refurbish the centre they could never have afforded to build from scratch.
“It was really instrumental in breaking down the wall,” said Roppel. He’s also hoping two-church communities will work together to save their local elevators.
Carolynne Bouey-Shank of Calgary wants to save her community association.
The Rosemont community has been active in the past in keeping the local school open and played a role in getting stop lights added to busy streets.
But Bouey-Shank said apathy threatens to disintegrate the community association.
She pledged to write a flyer before the next meeting to let people know all the good things the community association has done in the past. She hopes that will encourage new members of the community to revitalize the association.
Other people at the rural development seminar said when they returned home they would try to:
- Get community choirs together.
- Offer babysitting services.
- Create a loan circle.
- Create a swim program for low-income families.
- See what they can do to stop health-care cuts.
