Age Friendly Manitoba is a provincial government grant that provides funding to eligible communities to support a project that brings together the sponsoring municipality and three or more community organizations.  

The Town of Neepawa together with its partner organizations Home Assistance Neepawa & District (HAND), ArtsForward and Handi-Van worked together to apply for this grant last year and successfully the said grant was approved to be implemented this year.  Cassandra Groen, the new Town of Neepawa Recreation Director discussed what the grant is all about. “Age Friendly it can mean many things. Based on this grant specifically, in this organization, it means that our community is doing what we can to support the Senior Citizens in our community whether that’s active transportation, whether that’s making sure that they are getting their basic necessities, connection in the community. Basically anything that can increase their quality of life.” said Groen.

Yvonne Sisley of ArtsForward shared about an information session last year made by a representative from Age-Friendly Manitoba which was attended by different organizations in the community such as HAND, Touchwood and the Handi-Van. The information they got through that session guided them for Neepawa to be considered an Age Friendly Milestone community which is one of the requirements to be eligible for the said grant.  

Groen shared how the Town of Neepawa immediately applied for the grant when she was still on her first few months as the Recreation Director and how she consulted with the different organizations to make it happen. “Priority is milestone community so as soon as I found out we were a Milestone community, the grant came out I wanna say it was October, it was one of my first month of being here. So when I saw the grant come out and I knew we are a milestone community, we gotta get on this. This is huge for us and this is the perfect time to do it and that’s when we started brainstorming. I connected with the people that I knew that knew the community to make sure that the initiative would do right for the community cause we can guess all we want on what the community needs but to talk to people and to collaborate is how I learned what the community actually needs and wants. So we applied for it and got it at the end of December.” said Groen.

The Age Friendly Community Collaboration Grant is $10,000 and should be implemented within the year 2025 and the following are their planned activities for the year for our Seniors in the community:

Free Monthly Handi-Van Ride to Grocery Stores  

Part of the grant will be used to provide free Handi-Van ride for Seniors to go for grocery shopping. Currently, Handi-Van provides free ride to Seniors to get their groceries on Tuesdays through the sponsorship of Neepawa Gladstone Co-op but it is only limited to Seniors in Assisted Living. Through the grant, they will be able to extend it to Seniors living in their homes and will not be limited to just one store.

Monthly Activities and Social Hour & Dance

There will be free activities or workshops planned for each month which include Cooking, Card Games, Outdoor trips, Trivia and more. Aside from these activities, there will be Social Hour and Dance which is an opportunity for our Seniors who loves dancing or love listening to music and is also an opportunity to socialize. The Handi-Van will also provide transportation for those who need a ride to go to and from these events.

As mentioned by Groen, they were able to identify the needs of the community through their collaboration with different community groups and they have identified that Seniors isolation is one of the glaring realities faced by the Seniors population in the area. With the support of the Age Friendly Manitoba grant, Neepawa is taking meaningful steps to address senior isolation, providing opportunities for seniors to engage, socialize, and improve their overall quality of life.