• Arts and Culture:
Visions and Light Film Festival
The Visions and Light Film Festival focuses on removing the stigmas associated with mental illness, AIDS/HIV and addictions, while creating opportunities for dialogue among festival participants and audiences in Thunder Bay. The lights went up on the festival in 2002 with help from an OTF grant to the Canadian Mental Health Association, in partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the AIDS Committee of Thunder Bay.
In 2003, another Foundation investment of $25,000 over two years helped strengthen the organization further. It created a marketing strategy to package the films, designed a website and hired a coordinator.
Over the two year period of the OTF grant, 100 volunteers worked 1300 hours to help run the film festival. Now an established event in its sixth year, Visions and Light is considering including other art forms like music, poetry and visual art, as a way of celebrating the strengths and successes of mental health consumers/survivors.
• Sports and Recreation:
Boys and Girls Club of Thunder Bay
With help from the Foundation, Kids in the Thunder Bay area are ready to “ollie off the kicker”” when the mobile skate park comes to town!
In 2005, Boys and Girls Clubs of Thunder Bay received $31,000 to purchase a mobile skate park for children and youth to learn and practice skateboarding.
The mobile unit features nine portable skateboard ramps, a sound system, basketball standards, safety equipment and craft supplies. During the grant period, the skate park made 30 site visits and took part in five special events.
The mobile park offers healthy and fun outdoor activities to children and youth in a safe, supervised environment. Over the grant period, high school students volunteered 300 hours of their time to monitor the park sites.
The Sk8 Park is, according to trusted sources, “wicked”.
• Environment:
The Northwestern Ontario Conservation Partnership
Northwestern Ontario is an area rich in natural resources and natural beauty. The Rainy Lake Conservancy, with the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Rainy River Valley Field Naturalists is determined to keep it that way.
With an OTF grant of $48,900 over two years, this collaborative effort identified and conserved significant natural heritage features and built the Cranberry Peatlands Interpretive Trail, a wetland bog walk in Alberton Township. Visitors will be able enjoy the results for generations. The Rainy Lake Conservancy, the lead in this collaborative, is a two time OTF grant recipient. It is a small local environmental group with an annual budget of less than $10,000. Nonetheless, it has 200 members and 30 volunteers.
This groundbreaking project also established, for the first time, a second Nature Conservancy of Canada office in a single province.
• Human and Social Services:
Equay-wuk (Women’s Group)
Understanding cross-cultural communication is vital in a multicultural society. For caregivers, it improves the quality of their work. In 2005, OTF awarded Equay-wuk Women’s Group, located in Sioux Lookout, a grant of $51,000 to update and revise an existing cross-cultural resource. “The Guide for Professional Caregivers and Self Advocacy for First Nations Clients” helps native clients to better understand non-native culture, and gives non-natives a better sense of the traditions of indigenous peoples.
The guide was developed in consultation with Elders from many First Nations in the Northwest, as well as health care professionals, all of whom volunteered.
The Guide is formatted to use within a training session or as a stand alone reference book. It is in great demand.
• Grant Review Team Chair’s Award - for exemplifying the spirit of volunteerism:
Habitat for Humanity Thunder Bay
Habitat for Humanity helps those in need of adequate shelter to work side by side with volunteers to build simple, decent housing. Volunteering for Habitat gives trades people an opportunity to apply their skills, as well as a great sense of accomplishment.
In 2003, the Foundation granted $130,900 over three years to enable Habitat for Humanity Thunder Bay to create long-term partnerships. The organization had the second largest pool of volunteers in Northwestern Ontario, but no volunteer plan in place.
With the Foundation grant, new software was purchased, staff and volunteers were trained and a part-time volunteer coordinator was hired. Over the course of the grant, 267 new volunteers were recruited. By 2011 it is projected that Habitat for Humanity Thunder Bay will house up to five low income families per year through a combination of new builds and renovations to existing houses.
• 25th Anniversary Award - for remaining a leader in the not-for profit or charitable sector by consistently delivering on the Foundation’s granting priorities:
The PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise
The word “paro” is Latin for “I am ready”. The women of PARO embrace the chance to succeed.
A Foundation grantee dated back to 1997, The PARO Centre for Women’s Enterprise was created to help women realize success on their own terms. In 1995, PARO began as a women’s community loan fund. Today, it functions as a multi-faceted women-centered community economic development program, supporting PARO groups across Northwestern Ontario.
In 2005, PARO received $182,000 over three years from OTF to continue creating and supporting peer circle groups. These groups of women help each other network and build their own businesses. Currently, 30 PARO peer circle groups throughout the Northwest with 150 volunteers are creating opportunities for growth and advancement of its members.
The women of PARO are ready and set to go.