They're Building Community in Chatham-Kent

The folks in Chatham-Kent have figured out how to engage local citizens from the three sectors of the community (business, government and voluntary) and exciting things continue to happen!
In 1997, the United Way of Chatham-Kent formed the Chatham-Kent Community Capacity Builders. The group is for individuals and organizations with resources - money, time, energy, talents, passion, ideas, materials, goods and services - to identify and maximize the community's assets and capacities and to meet human service needs in a spirit of consultation and collaboration. The group has been receiving funding from H.R.D.C. and the Ontario Trillium Foundation for the past four years for its Nurture the Future community capacity building project. Several other partners, including The Comfort Inn, Cogeco Cable, local Chambers of Commerce, Municipality of Chatham-Kent, Community Futures Development Corporation, Pioneer Hi-Bred and Union Gas Limited, have provided generous in-kind support to many of the initiatives born of the Nurture the Future project.

Working hand in hand with the volunteers and staff recruited to implement the new Chatham-Kent Community Strategic Plan (introduced to the public in May of 2001), the volunteers and staff with the Nurture the Future Project have joined forces to plan an annual Community Report Card Day, to produce a Community N.E.W.S.letter and to explore opportunities for ongoing tri-sector initiatives. These activities are all designed to fulfill the new community vision of "a proud, proactive and progressive community committed to celebrating its diversity and ensuring a high quality of life for all of its people."

While the number of new partnerships and community activities are too numerous to highlight in this particular issue of the OHCC newsletter, some recent collaborative efforts include a first-ever Social Capital Survey and Corporate Community Investment Survey, National Pay It Forward Day, a Life-Long Learning Event, and an Environmental Expo.

Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of the book "Pay it Forward" (which inspired the motion picture by the same name), travelled to Chatham-Kent from her home in California on March 21st of this year to help local community partners launch Canada's first Pay it Forward Day. Local community partners are committed to making this an annual event - to celebrate the gifts of the head, hand and heart.

Deborah Shepherd, Chatham-Kent Community Strategic Plan Implementation Co-ordinator with the Municipality of Chatham-Kent and Al Baker, Project Staff with Nurture the Future are shown here (see picture) at the Life-Long Learning Event hosted in April of this year.

  On May 31st, at Community Report Card Day, participants welcomed Thomas Sander, Executive Director of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Tom has worked closely with Robert D. Putnam, author of the national best-seller, "Bowling Alone" and was on hand to make a presentation on the importance of social capital to the building of community. Later, as part of Community Report Card Day, business partner Steve Poredos from Union Gas Limited presented the results of Chatham-Kent's first Social Capital Survey developed as part of the Nurture the Future Project.
On June 12th, Dr. William Fyfe from the Earth Sciences Department of the University of Western Ontario was invited to speak at an Environmental Expo and to meet with the folks who were on hand to showcase their passion for the local environment.

Karen Kirkwood-Whyte
Executive Director, United Way of Chatham-Kent and
Chair, Chatham-Kent Community Capacity Builders.