October Update: Community-Based Budgeting in Ward Karhiio

We held a Community-Based Budgeting Project Check-In and Celebration at the end of October. It was wonderful to be able to come together to celebrate the hard work of all of the project leads, volunteers, project partners, and our project team. This whole process, seeing the new relationships formed, the projects coming to fruition all over Ward Karhiio and Ward Nakota Isga - from Millhurst, to Aldergrove, to Charlesworth - has been really uplifting! The magic that can happen when we work together.

Everyone shared reflections on the Community-Based Budgeting process and we heard about the progress of the different projects - how community has come together to design and build food libraries in Aldergrove, to collaborate with ETS to paint a pride walkway in Millwoods, to build little libraries in collaboration with schools, to launch neighbourhood soccer in Secord to connect neighbours, and more.

In the words of a few of our participants:

“The people have the solutions. Let people closest to the ground have the power!”.

“It’s been a real coming together of community, people of different ages, cultures, all walks of life”.

“Thank you Keren and Andrew for coming up with this idea, it’s refreshing to see Councillors in the community. It’s a great way to build community, it gives us a chance to be creative”.

“It’s almost overwhelming seeing everyone here, seeing the reach. I love seeing the projects come together, it warms my heart, thank you for doing this”.

We look forward to sharing further reflections in a few months once we complete our project evaluation! Check out the photos below of some projects that have been launched to date in Karhiio!

From left to right: Millhurst Little Libraries Project, Pride Walkway at Millwoods Town Centre, Community Benches in Charlesworth, and Cul-de-sac Trees.