The Town of Bonnyville is making a donation to support a pair of local speaking events.
The donation request came from Judy Cabay of Pushing for Change. Council considered the request at the Feb. 11 meeting.
The public events in the Lakeland area will see Joe Roberts take the stage to tell his story from skid row to CEO. He will share his personal experiences of being a homeless addict on the streets of Vancouver. Topics covered at the events will surround resiliency, the power of possibilities, and what can happen when you believe in yourself.
There are two separate speaking events, one during the day for high school students and one in the evening, which is free and open to the public.
Lakeland Credit Union is covering the cost of the speaker with the support of other community agencies and businesses.
The plan is to have all high school students attend the event from the Lakeland area.
“Very neat initiative. They want to bring in kids from all over the area for this and it’s going to be open for adults for free to attend in the evening. If it helps one or two kids, it’s money well spent,” said Coun. Byron Johnson.
Coun. Phil Kushnir echoed the importance of addressing mental health issues.
“As we heard earlier, mental health in this region is always a challenge, and he is a really good speaker. People listen when he talks, they’ll always have hope,” he said.
“For some of these kids, that’s all they have is hope, if they can just have that hope, this gentleman was off the streets, he was on drugs and became a CEO, that’s pretty impressive.”
Mayor Elisa Brosseau asked if any schools had confirmed attendance, but at this time, administration says they do not know if schools have confirmed.
“For me, I like the initiative, but I mean, we’re just hoping people show up. I hope people come out in the evening. I don’t know how successful it’ll be, it’s hard when you don’t see other people, hopefully, other people in other councils and municipalities are going to support this,” said Brosseau.
“Right now it’s just a hope in the wind that it’ll happen, I would like to see us support it at the $1,500. If the ask was the $1,500 it wouldn’t even have to come to council, so that’s where my support would be”
The ask to council is $2,500 to help cover the cost of renting the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre.
Both the City of Cold Lake and the Municipal District of Bonnyville will also be asked to provide funding for the event.
“I would have liked to see more guarantee that schools are going to be there or other organizations, I just don’t see any of that other support here in the ask. Right now we could be supporting an event that we may see one school attend,” said Brosseau.
Coun. David Sharun, prior to making the motion to donate $2,500 to the rental of the facility, spoke about the importance of this initiative.
“With this mental health, I just attended an AG Society conference, so much mental health out there, especially with the farming community. We had a couple of great speakers; these are rough times for some people. Like the previous councillors said, even if one or two get touched and we save them the $2,500, it’s worth it,” he said.
Council passed the motion to donate $2,500 to Pushing for Change for the rental of the Bonnyville and District Centennial Centre.
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