Elmwood Night Market returns Aug. 23

Mark your calendars for a special night out in Elmwood.

The popular Elmwood Night Market returns to the field at 180 Poplar Ave. on Friday, Aug. 23 for its fourth instalment. To date, over 50 vendors, five food trucks, and live entertainment are booked for the free event, which will run from 5 to 9 p.m.

“We expect about 2,000 people to attend, but we’ll see,” said Kendall Pratap, Reimagine Elmwood co-ordinator for the Chalmers Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation. “Last year’s events had over 1,000.”

The Elmwood Night Market launched in 2022 from a desire to provide a marquee event for the neighbourhood while providing opportunities for local businesses.

Haka rugby camps coming to Winnipeg July 25-27

Winnipeg youth will soon have the chance to take part in an upcoming Haka rugby camp.

The three-day camp will be held from Thursday, July 25 to Saturday, July 27 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at Maple Grove Rugby Park, which is located at 190 Frobisher Rd. in south St. Vital.

Hosted by Winnipeg’s Assassins Rugby Football Club, the camp is run by Haka Rugby Global, which fuses its passion for rugby with New Zealand’s Māori culture and heritage to help develop the next generation of leaders.

The camp is tailored to girls and boys in the U8 to U16 age range, and participants are supported in a safe and controlled environment, where they will learn skills that apply both on and off the rugby pitch. Players aged 14 to 16 will also receive a more in-depth experience of elite training, organizers say.

East edition news in brief — week of July 17, 2024

Glenwood CC to hold summer sizzler Aug. 21

Glenwood Community Centre (27 Overton St.) will host its inaugural summer sizzler event on Wednesday, Aug. 21 from 5 to 8 p.m.

Community members are invited to an evening of activities and games, including bouncy castles, a candy scramble, children’s activities and games, community gardens dedications, a community police visit, cotton candy and mini doughnuts (for sale), glitter tattoos, a petting zoo, and a professional DJ. Other food and snacks will also be available for purchase.

Entry to the event is free. Visit www.glenwoodcommunitycentre.com/summersizzler for more information.

Escaping the heat

Local youngsters cooled off recently at the Park City West spray pad in Transcona, one of the many free-to-use spray pads in Winnipeg.

According to the city, spray pads are open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. until Sept. 2, with some exceptions. For a list of most, but not all spray pads in the city, visit legacy.winnipeg.ca/cms/recreation/facilities/pools/spraypads.stm

Turning invasive weeds into wildflowers

For the past seven summers, Wilma Sotas, Fenella Temmerman and Brian Crow have been organizing and hosting volunteer weed control and native planting events along the Seine River Greenway. The trail runs between the Shorehill and Creek Bend bridges, meandering through forest and open prairie.

“It is truly a beautiful stretch of the Seine River,” Temmerman said.

“When we first started, it was full of invasive plant species, such as thistle, vetch, burdock and leafy spurge that choked out native wildflowers and shrubs. While we are still fighting to keep them at bay, we can see some Manitoba plants and grasses reclaiming the area,” Sotas noted.

Temmerman leads Save Our Seine (SOS)’s Land Care, dedicated to advocacy, education, and preservation. Local residents have been working together for several years with SOS and City of Winnipeg naturalists to increase biodiversity along the Greenway.

How will AI affect education?

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Canadian School Boards Association Conference in Toronto with my colleagues Sandy Nemeth and Darlene Gerrior.

While there is much to report on, one issue I found myself delving into both during and after the conference is the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on public education.

I will disclose that I am a moderate skeptic of the AI mania that has swept the world in the last year. Despite the impressive capabilities of AI, there has been a wave of somewhat excessively eager adoption or, in many cases, a tendency to label existing technologies as “AI” to capitalize on the hype.

However, the existence of generative text and image models is a reality, and their potential applications are significant, if not yet fully explored.

A special visitor

The summer is in full swing, and my grass has never looked this good. Our unusually high rainfall in May and June must be the reason, because I haven’t done anything different.

This summer, we have already had some visitors and a special visitor is coming soon. A long time ago, when my daughter, Allyson, was in Grade 12 at Dakota Collegiate, we volunteered to be part of the Japanese exchange student program and we housed a Japanese student, Momoyo Takeshita, for half a year. Over the past many years, we have stayed in touch, mostly with a Christmas card or her family picture.

Imagine our surprise when we received an email from Momoyo asking if her daughter might be able to come to Canada to visit us… for a month! We have fond thoughts of the time she spent with us almost 30 years ago, so we agreed to host her daughter, who will be arriving in August.

Speaking of young people, I have connected lately with several university-aged youngsters (let’s face it… they’re all youngsters compared to me). The St. Vital Museum has three summer students working for us this year who are keen about history and the museum. Their energy and talent is fun to be around. It has been a while since I have worked closely with a younger generation. There was a lot of that positive young energy at the Goldeyes, but that was a while ago. Now it is just as much fun.

New hub of activity at Dakota C.C.

Dakota Community Centre officially opened its new children’s fitness playground on June 21. Three quarters of the funding came from the Government of Canada’s Community revitalization fund, with Dakota CC raising the remainder of the money.

What does it mean for neighbouring children, aged five years and up? Well, the playground is a place to socialize outdoors while maintaining fitness throughout the summer. Working with designers, the community centre imagined a playground with unique structures, to encourage children’s desires for adventure. The completed site features a spider-walk stepping rock, over-under bars, boogie board, mobius climber and a high step rope and a jump hang. All elements are designed to improve strength, balance and co=ordination.

In addition to the play structure, new additions included in this revamp of the Dakota campus are batting cages, bike cages and the purchase of an indoor/outdoor theatre system that will enable community members and families to watch movies under the stars, or inside during the winter months.

Located in south St. Vital, Dakota C.C. is the home of the Jonathan Toews Sportsplex and Dakota Fieldhouse. It features indoor and outdoor rinks, a fitness centre and is a hub for sports and activities of all kinds.

No Frills, Nelson Little ‘just making it happen’

On June 1, Trevor & Hayley’s No Frills store at McIvor Mall celebrated winning the No Frills Community Award for Western Canada with a special event featuring musician Nelson Little.

“We are community minded and always focus on the human connection in business. Being kind, offering great customer service and building community partnerships is what makes our business,” Hayley Williams said. Together, she and Trevor have secured many partnerships in Winnipeg and provide food for many programs in the city.

Williams said they volunteered 1,000 hours in 2023 on top of their busy work schedule: “We love our city, we love people and we love sharing love and kindness everywhere we go.”

The June 1 celebration included music by Nelson Little and Bram Avery of the Nelson Little Band, which recently won the Countryfest Battle of the Bands competition at McPhillips Station Casino and then performed at Dauphin’s Countryfest over the July long weekend (they also won recording time).

The problem with potholes…

No matter how you get around in Winnipeg, you definitely know that potholes are a big issue in our city every year. They are often caused by freeze-thaw cycles that occur in winter and spring and the continuing pressure of traffic on the road at those times. The City of Winnipeg’s public works department at the city is working hard to fill as many potholes as possible, and we know that more can be done.

Media recently reported that, as of July 1, 179,620 potholes had been filled so far this year. My colleague, Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West), chair of the public works committee, told reporters that this number includes potholes that needed to be filled more than once.

It is more difficult to fill potholes in winter. A pebbly asphalt solution known as cold patch can be used to temporarily fix a pothole but it is less effective than using hot asphalt. This year, public works has been experimenting with a solution of tar and recycled asphalt called Road Soup which can be mixed with cold patch in order to potentially make the repairs last longer.

Many of the potholes filled this year were in St. Boniface ward, including work done on Lakewood Boulevard and Beaverhill Boulevard in Southdale, both of which are very busy road; my office received many complaints about the condition of both streets.

CDCP will make a difference to lives of many

When the government introduced the Canadian Dental Care Plan its goal was to help ease financial barriers to accessing oral health care. Once the plan is fully implemented in 2025, up to nine million uninsured Canadians with a net family income to less than $90,000 will benefit.

So far, more than 2.1 million eligible Canadians have registered for the CDCP. They have received welcome packages clearly indicating their coverage start dates. In May 2024, the first round of applicants were able to access dental services. Each individual’s coverage start date depends on when they applied. Since May 1, over 250,000 Canadians having received care.

Experts and dental associations from every province and territory have been consulted. My colleagues, Health Minister Mark Holland, along with Jean-Yves Duclos before him, have personally met with each association to consult on the program.

The CDCP works similarly to other private insurance plans your dentist likely uses when direct billing private insurance plans. Patients present their CDCP cards and dentists simply bill the CDCP’s contracted insurance administrator (SunLife) directly as they would any other insurance provider and receive payment within 48 hours of the service. Many Canadians now covered by the CDCP cannot afford the up-front costs of these services, which is why we have a direct-billing system that many dentists use in many parts of the country.

CMHA is ‘there for people’

Knowing where to go when you need help is essential, and maybe never more so than when it comes to mental health. Consultations with family doctors can result in appointments with a psychiatrist — whose services are covered by Manitoba Health — or private practice therapists, counsellors or psychologists, whose services may require the payment of fees through private or group insurance plans or by the patients themselves.

Going online to find resources is a good alternative. The Canadian Mental Health Association of Manitoba and Winnipeg’s Service Navigation Hub provides an overview of the services available to those seeking help.

“When people go to our website they will have the opportunity to find their region of Manitoba,” said Stephen Sutherland, fund development manager of CMHA Manitoba and Winnipeg. “As they look at the programs and services, we encourage people to connect to our service navigation program, where our recovery specialists are equipped to listen and determine possible next steps within our programs and services. In the event that there is not a fit at CMHA, we know that there is something with our long list of community partners.”

Sutherland notes that Manitobans face worrying levels of stress, anxiety, and loneliness, heightened by social inequality, an affordability crisis, ongoing climate concerns and food security.

Numbers you should know — 211 and 988

There are two potentially life-saving phone numbers that every Manitoban should have memorized, written on their fridge, or highlighted in their phones – the 211 mental health line and the 988 suicide crisis helpline.

211 Manitoba accesses community-based government, health and social services designed to meet the needs of diverse demographics. It’s free and confidential, available 24/7 in over 200 languages, including four Indigenous languages. Managed by United Way Winnipeg and guided by a province-wide volunteer advisory committee – with support from the Province of Manitoba, Manitoban United Ways, funding partners and donors – 211 is available to everyone.

Anyone in crisis with thoughts of suicide or who is worried about someone else can access assistance free of charge from the 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline, a national telephone and text suicide prevention and support service that provides culturally affirming suicide prevention services, offers access to online resources, local helplines and crisis resources across Canada. 988 is a partnership of government and community agencies led by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

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Easy as riding a bike

For the fourth year in a row, Variety Manitoba hit the ground rolling with its two-week bike camp, something which CEO Jeff Liba describes as his “favourite two weeks of the year.”

The camp, the largest of its kind in North America, brings in coaches from the U.S.-based ICan Shine organization, as well as local volunteers, to create a safe, accessible avenue for young kids facing disabilities as they learn how to ride bicycles.

The two-week program, consisting of two, 75-minute sessions each day, has an 80 per cent success rate, Liba said, but success isn’t the main aspect.

“To just see the excitement in the children … and even the kids who aren’t successful, they have grown just a ton,” he said.