Community Pride
Community Pride
Jobs With Community Pride

Community Pride is a program that connects local youth to their community, builds mutual respect and provids skills and opportunities for positive development within the community and for the future. It is one of the ways that WCRC promotes asset and capacity, with the intent of making the community a safer and healthier place. The 2007-2008 year was in many ways the most successful period for Community Pride to date.

During that time more youth were involved than ever before and participated in more community driven projects, produced more lasting high profile results in the form of videos, a brochure and a website, in addition to their help supporting community events and projects by their presence and efforts.

Fifty-nine community youth participated in Community Pride. Each youth provided up to 40 hours of their time, and far more were impacted if those that assisted technically or appeared as cast members in the violence prevention video productions are taken into consideration. The involvement of youth in this community continues to grow and the reach of the project, directly and indirectly effects almost all youth i the community to some degree.

Eighty-two training spaces were filled by local youth who attended valuable workshops and by doing so became better prepared to enter the labour market for summer jobs or full time employment. These formal training sessions included Level One First Aid, Food Safe, Attitude is everything and Superhost. All workshops were well attended and all participants passed and received certificates of completion. Youth were supported as required and referred to other services as applicable to assist with pre-employment skills, job search assistance and resume writing.

Comments from youth, verbal and in written evaluations lead us to believe that, as intended, youth enjoyed and found their interaction with adults in their community a positive experience and they now feel more connected and involved in their community. It has enabled them to support community endeavors, be mentored by numerous adults with diverse skills, learn new skills and develop new attitudes and most important, develop a greater sense of awareness and ownership of their community.

Feedback from community members and those who hosted youth was positive and remarkably few interventions or counselling had to be provided during these job placements. On the other hand, while producing the violence prevention videos, some youth who had issues found the production process cathartic and youth councelors in turn found the process very helpful to their work with the youth. Parents and educators also had very positive things to say about how beneficial Community Pride was for youth.

Community Pride Projects included:

  • Cherryville Community Club - renovating various structures at Hansen Park
  • Mabel Lake Community Club - assembling playground, cutting brush and finishing siding, assisting with Turkey Bingo event.
  • Lumby Public Market - participation during a public event
  • Lumby Days Society - assisted with set-up and take down
  • Lumby Info Centre- greeted travelers, assisted with travel information and cleaning duties
  • Lumby Museum - repainting the museum
  • Lumby Funtastics - clean up during and after the event
  • Lumby Lions - youth designed a new promotional brochure for the local Lions campsite, which was then sent to printers. This led to other CP youth designing and building a website: http://www.lumbylions.ca
  • Lumby Good Times Together - assisting with childcare
  • Lumby Volunteer Fire Department - set-up and take down for fundraising event
  • Whitevalley Community Resource Centre - assisted with hosting Community Organizations Fair during Lumby Days
  • Monashee Arts Council - assisting with promotion, set-up and staffing of art show including firing rake pottery exhibit
  • Lumby Parks and Recreation - assisting at Tots and Preschool Fun Time
  • Saddle Mountain Place Senior's Drop-In - Food prep, serving and activities
  • Lumby Minor Hockey - helping organize, collection and delivery of donated items for family who lost home due to fire, providing assistance at the arena during events, older CP youth provided monitoring and support during events
  • Lumby Chamber of Commerce - Christmas light up. Strung lights, and decorated, cooked hotdogs and made hot chocolate and served. Assisted Santa
  • Lumby Parks and Rec. - Decorating prior to and helping out with participants during the anual craft fair
  • Lumby Seniors on the Go - cleaning the bus, inside and out
  • Lumby Food Bank - helping with the Christmas food drive, moving food from storage to event area and back