There are so many acronyms floating around Thompson's community-building and not-for-profit sectors that it's easy to forget what each of them stand for and what each group does.
The Thompson Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, though, wants to make TNRC one acronym that everybody knows.
"We're a grassroots organization that receives funding from the provincial government, through Neighbourhoods Alive!, to create programs that fit the needs of the community, and also to be a place where the province can put funding through," explains TNRC executive director Dawn Sands.
To achieve those results, TNRC distributes money to other organizations through a small grants fund, and to homeowners through their Front And Paint Program, as well as administering some projects on their own, including Our Home Kikinaw, the Downtown Ambassadors Program, and a financial management program - all with a core staff of just four employees.
"Our asset-building program is one of our newer programs, we just started it about a year ago," says Sands. "We teach money management training to low-income people. A participant that qualifies and identifies a need that they have - it could be that they have to save money for an education, or furniture for their home, maybe they need a computer to go back to school - for every dollar that the participant saves, they're matched by three dollars from the province. They're given a six-month timeframe, so they get into the habit of saving money. At the same time, they have to take ten weeks of money management training - we teach them budgeting, the pitfalls of Money Marts, things like that."
Our Home Kikinaw is Thompson's version of Habitat for Humanity. The finishing touches are being put on the first home, on Juniper Drive behind the Manitoba Métis Federation building, which when completed will be home to Carey Anne Lindsay and her family - at which point work will begin on the second home, next door. Sands says that planning has been done for five homes to be built in five years.
The Downtown Ambassador Program sees local youth hired for the summer to patrol Thompson on foot and on bike, alerting the authorities to situations they are needed and at the same time working to clean up the community. "It's a proactive approach to policing a community - instead of waiting for something to happen, it's eyes and ears on the street, watching for people who may need assistance or may be looking to cause a little trouble," explains Sands. "They're often the first point of contact for the police, or for Prairie Bylaw when we had them."
TNRC's core funding comes from Neighbourhoods Alive! through the Neighbourhoods Renewal Fund (NRF). Each year, TNRC is given $30,000 to dole out through their Front and Paint Program, which goes in small amounts to eligible homeowners looking to beautify their properties. To qualify for these grants, a homeowner originally must have been earning less than $42,000 per year - but TNRC was able to get the province to expand the boundaries for the North, now anyone making over that amount is eligible for a beautification grant as long as they fund half the project themselves.
Another $50,000 is available through TNRC for a series of small grants for projects, which reflect TNRC's core priorities, which for the last five years have stood as accessible and affordable housing, safe communities, and cultural acceptance. Recent recipients of small TNRC grants have included the Thompson Skate Park, Thompson Boys & Girls Club, and Thompson Humane Society among many others.
With TNRC's most recent five-year mandate drawing to a close, the group has spent the past few months asking Thompson what it should be focusing on during the next five years. "Every five years, we do a community consultation," explains Sands, who had previously been TNRC's housing co-ordinator before taking over as executive director last September, when Charlene Lafreniere moved over to the University College of the North. "We ask the community what they want to see. We do the work that the community tells us to do - the community tells us these are the priorities they want to get done, we put them together in a plan and spend the next five years executing them."
"We've done all our consultations," she continues. "The first people we talked to were ourselves - we talked to our board and staff because they're on the front line, they're the ones hitting the pavement and hearing the voices of the community. Most of our board members are volunteers, and they do come from people in the community. We also talked to the other service providers in town - we held it at AFM and the crisis centre was invited, the Y was invited, AFM, Ma-Mow-We-Tak - you name it, they were invited. We also spoke to the city, because we do partner often with the city, to get a feel for their needs. There was one with the Chamber of Commerce, and a public one as well."
So what did TNRC hear people wanting them to work on? "It was very clear," says Sands. "I think we're going to get handed back affordable housing, that has not gone away, the need for that to be built and to be advocated for. We'll also get handed back cultural acceptance, and a safety component as well. There are two other things people gave us as concerns - an environmental mandate, people really want to see us focusing on more green and environmental projects, and recreation. They're looking for new recreation, and enhancement to what's already existing."
Recreation was surely top-of-mind for another upcoming TNRC project: "We've been approved to work with the city to finish Cliff Park, which is really exciting," explains Sands. "Cliff Park actually started 10 years ago, and it started in a partnership with TNRC and through the NRF fund. Now, 10 years later, we're coming back and finishing that project." Cliff Park, located on Princeton Drive between Highland Tower and Princeton Towers, already contains some green space as well as basketball and tennis courts, but Sands says that future expansion will include park benches and play structures.
"One of the biggest rewards about working at the TNRC is that there are tangible things out there that we can look at, and we can see people looking at them and taking advantage of them, and we can see that the work that we do improves the lives of Thompsonites," notes Sands.
TNRC's next five-year plan is being finalized internally, and Sands expects it to be presented to the public by March. "We're really excited to get that presented to the community and start working on new projects, and continuing with the old ones too," she says.
