Winter Fair Highlights Wide Variety of Local Organisations

While the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair may be known for its animal competitions and performances, the fair also makes space for local organisations to showcase their programs that provide opportunities to the thousands of people who attend the fair each year. NACTV correspondent John Drinkwater talks to some of those organisations that are representing our area and are making a difference in the Westman region. These include Creation Nation, St. John Ambulance Rescue Dogs, Lions Foundation Guide Dogs, Town of Carberry, Westman Volt Hockey, and the Canadian Armed Forces.

Creation Nation is a makerspace in the Brandon area that focuses on 3D printing. Their Makers Making Change program, which began this past year, makes assistive devices for local individuals with disabilities. The organisation puts a lot of focus on youth, not only working on skills development with kids but also teaching them to be more socially responsible in the community.

Founder Russ Mitchell also works with the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation which is responsible for a number of social programs in the Brandon area, including the local immigration partnership, harm reduction network, training programs for adults with barriers to employment, and the Ask Auntie Project which focuses on providing supports to Indigenous people.

Longtime Volunteer Norah Wychyshyn is representing the local St John Ambulance Service Dogs, which is a pet therapy program that works in personal care homes as well as in the local community colleges and university. The dogs, often rescues, are trained locally to help with both therapy and companionship to individuals who are isolated, sick, or experiencing mental health difficulties. Volunteers foster, work with, and accompany the dogs on their visits, and Wychyshyn says there is always the need for many more.

Willy Brown of the Lions Foundation Guide Dogs talks about the process of training and connecting service dogs for vision and hearing impairment, diabetic alert, seizure response, autism assist, and other supports. The project is sponsored entirely by the Lions Club, and from start to finish - which begins with fostering the dogs out until the age of two and then training them to professional standards - the cost to train a single dog is about $35,000. There is no cost to a client to receive a dog, and they have the opportunity to meet the dogs and make a good match before the service animal joins the family. There is always a huge need for volunteers in addition to fundraising activities, and as a Westman local Brown is also able to tell us about some places close to home where these animals are making a difference.

The Town of Carberry, Neepawa’s neighbour to the south, is set up at the fair to promote the community to visitors, not only for being within commuting distance to Brandon, the region’s largest centre, but for some of its upcoming events. The Carberry Fair and Races, known throughout Western Canada for its chariot and chuckwagon races, is coming up in early July and is a big regional tourism draw.

Two volunteers with the Westman Volt Hockey Program, which started just last year, explain just what volt hockey is and why it’s important to the region. Volt hockey is hockey played in a gymnasium in motorised carts, and enables kids who are unable to play the sport under standard conditions to participate. The cost of the program is entirely raised through the local business community, which is not insubstantial as each cart costs approximately $10,000, and there is no cost whatsoever to participants. Seeing such a large response, the project has recently rolled out an adult program in addition to its K-12 program, and is looking at ways to bring the game out to additional rural communities to try it out. While the sport has taken off in Europe, the Westman program is one of just four in Canada so far.

Finally, Brandon is home to Manitoba’s artillery reserve for the Canadian Armed Forces, and they are on hand at the fair to let the public see some of their specialised equipment but also talk about what the reserves do in the area. Training out of nearby CFB Shilo and maintaining a presence at the Brandon Police Service building, the reserves are involved in activities such as sandbagging, firefighting, and avalanche control. The first two especially are perennial problems in the Westman area that often need the reserves’ quick mobilisation and expertise in addition to countless volunteer hours to control.