Investing in Community Connection

Few would say there was a silver lining to COVID-19, but when the pandemic forced the Seniors’ Centre for Excellence to find new ways to keep seniors connected, it started a virtual programming initiative that remains very popular with their clients to this day.

“We established virtual Zoom sessions when we weren’t able to meet in person and a family was created,” says Helen Edwards, the Centre’s program coordinator. “A Zoom family that continues to meet twice a week.”

Edwards says the thought was the program would end once restrictions were removed but the participants lobbied for it to continue.

“Once things got back to normal, we assumed people wouldn't want to have the program anymore and that just wasn’t the case,” she says. “They know each other now and it's like a sense of family and connection to the community that they did not want to end.”

With the program continuing, the next challenge for Edwards was finding ways to keep the programming interesting.

“We wanted to attract some more professional speakers on a monthly schedule to present different topics, but we have a pretty tight budget to work with for the virtual programming that we can offer,” she says.

That budget received a boost in early April when Edwards got word her application to ADAMA Canada’s Stomping Grounds community investment initiative was approved for a $2,500 grant to support programming.

Stomping Grounds

The Seniors' Centre for Excellence is one of 23 community projects from across Canada that received funding from ADAMA this year. The company invested a total of $127,000 into the 23 projects and has contributed over half a million dollars since 2018 to strengthen the fabric of rural communities.

Edwards found out about Stomping Grounds from Jocelyn DeWeerd of Harriston Agromart, who helped Edwards complete the application process and accompanied Dennis Roth, Ontario Area Business Manager with ADAMA Canada, to personally deliver the cheque to the Seniors' Centre for Excellence.

“Jocelyn was telling me that the Seniors’ Centre is really well known in the area even though they don’t have an actual facility of their own,” says Roth. “They bring the programming to the community, and she thought it was a perfect fit for the types of projects and programs we invest in.”

“I hadn’t met Jocelyn until she and Dennis came to drop off the cheque. One day she just reached out to me about Stomping Grounds, and after I filled out the application, she submitted it for us. She was as excited as we were when we found out we were selected,” adds Edwards.

“These are tough times for everyone, and grants like this allow us to add the icing on the cake – and the icing is important,” she says.