On paper, the Neepawa Community Ministries Centre community consultation was to determine how the community viewed the centre, and what it needed from them that it wasn’t currently getting. What it turned out to be was a brainstorming session on what the town as a whole needed to support its citizens now and through its current and future rapid growth and development.

An astonishing number of ideas were generated by participants, and sometimes awkward or painful truths seemed to be revealed as participants addressed questions such as “Is our community prepared for further growth?”, “What resources need to be available to individuals wanting to break the cycle of poverty?”, and “Do you feel Neepawa is a well-connected community?”

There was widespread acknowledgment from participants that there are a lot of resources that the community is lacking, or that exist and are underutilised, ranging from big-ticket items such as housing and a lack of crisis resources to more basic community needs, such as the lack of social opportunities after about 9 pm.

The group also offered solutions, and the final part of the conversation involved identifying some of the more pressing issues, ideas, or actionable items that arose over the course of the evening. One of these was the significant transportation issues that some residents run into; while Neepawa has a growing downtown core, it is still a rural area and there are issues with distances to resources. Another was the idea of developing more mentorship for fundamental skills that are sometimes taken for granted, such as tool use or financial literacy.

Though the session was open to anyone to attend, the makeup of the participants was notably long-term residents of the town, many of them educators or already involved with social services or non-profits, with few newcomers offering their own ideas and suggestions. This was observed by both participants and organisers, and a portion of the discussion turned to how to better bridge this divide to ensure all voices were being heard.