A Matchmaking Website for Volunteers and Non-Profits
Have you ever thought of giving back to the community – volunteering somehow – but aren’t sure of where to start?
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Have you ever thought of giving back to the community – volunteering somehow – but aren’t sure of where to start?
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Can we learn to play society together the same way we learn to play hockey? To answer this question, let’s look at how young children learn to play hockey.
First, before young children can even begin to play hockey, they must learn some basic skills: to skate forward, backward, in a straight line or turning while handling the puck with a stick. Although it is hard at the beginning, they eventually learn the basic skills.
Gradually they also start assimilating knowledge and mastering other skills associated with the dynamic of hockey.
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Over the past three decades, there has been a shift in how we connect with one another. Today, people report fewer informal social ties, decrease in tolerance and trust, and an eroding political and civic engagement atmosphere in our communities. Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival of American Community suggests that our overall experiences of being in community have been steadily declining since the 1960s. Research by Holt-Lunstad et al. suggests that social isolation has serious negative consequences for our health and well-being – the impact is likened to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Building communities that bring residents together and help them feel a sense of belonging and connection are more likely to live longer, be healthier, be happier, and act for the common good.
While municipalities have traditionally focused on the built components of a neighbourhood - paving sidewalks and roads or building houses, parks and arenas - cities across Canada are now realizing that city building also includes the people who live, work and play in each neighbourhood.
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For more than 100 years, the Lehigh Valley, a metropolitan region in northeastern Pennsylvania, was renown as an industrial powerhouse, and manufacturers like Bethlehem Steel, Mack Truck and Coplay Portland Cement were its heart. But by the 1980's, these industries had closed, moved out of the region or were downsized due to national and global competition. The urban areas- Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton- went into a sharp economic decline, which lasted for nearly three decades.
By 2014 however, the city of Allentown was gaining global recognition for its “innovative, forward-looking approach to design and development.” The economic renaissance of Allentown is a testament to the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of its ancestors. The establishment of a Neighbourhood Improvement Zone (NIZ) in Allentown’s downtown core was the spark that launched the city’s economic revitalization, which has included: a 10,000-seat multipurpose arena, several office towers, restaurants, green spaces, restored historic buildings as well as residential and retail spaces. Downtown Allentown is now “a regional centre of excellence for business, culture and metropolitan living." In 2011 only 9,000 people worked downtown but by 2018, that number had grown to 16,000.
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Achieving success is not about wishing for the best future, but being prepared to do the difficult work of getting ready. Ready Set Go: Building Readiness for Collaborative and Community Impact is a brand new paper designed to help community change practitioners set into place all the conditions required to move from idea to execution to impact.
Many of us jump into collaboration without considering the context of the community or the issue that we are hoping to change. We gather around collaborative tables and look to the future, often without considering how to leverage what already exists, how our community might respond and where potential synergies might be which could be the launch pads toward impact.
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The Province of Prince Edward Island (PEI) appointed twelve members to its new Poverty Reduction Advisory Council in February of 2018. The council is now getting to work to deliver a poverty reduction plan to the government for October.
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