WATER INITIATIVE:
The HUB has been inspired by the Blue Communities initiative by the Council of Canadians. The HUB has now partnered with the Huntsville BIA to bring water bottle refill stations to our community to help provide free, clean water to people and reduce the waste that one-use plastic water bottles brings to our town. We’re always looking for ways to contribute on a community level – let us know if you have other ideas!
YWCA CIRCLES:
Circles® Muskoka is a community collaborative committed to the reduction of poverty by harnessing the power of relationship. The program is facilitated by the YWCA Muskoka, and is being assisted by The United Way. For more info on the program, watch VIDEO HERE or visit circlesmuskoka.com
AWARD WINNERS:
For its development of The HUB in Muskoka, NewVU received the ‘Rural Ontario Leaders Award’ in the category of outstanding non-government organization. The award recognizes outstanding leaders among rural residents, communities, businesses and organizations for work in improving the quality of life and economic well-being of rural Ontario.
For more information about NewVU and our other projects, see About Us.
When I was young I wanted to have fun in sport. I did not want to be the best or be a professional, I just wanted to participate. I was not able to understand that being in a wheelchair meant I was different. I tried all kinds of sports: soccer, basketball, track and field and downhill skiing. In every sport I played I hit a plateau because someone else decided it was too complicated to include me. I eventually found inclusion in sport through sledge hockey. I made a career and name for myself representing Canada at the highest level possible. I tried many inclusive sports, often at great expense before I found sledge hockey.
This is the inspiration behind Accomplish Today Fund for Sport. Accomplish Today provides funds for youth with disabilities to get involved in sport and gain confidence through a healthy and active lifestyle. Through my journey to success, I hope to make the lives of others rewarding.
Graeme Murray – 4 Time Paralympian & World Champion
President of Accomplish Today Fund for Sport a Not-For-Profit
Circles™ Muskoka is a community-based initiative that creates relationships across economic boundaries. It matches people of low-income who have attended the Getting Ahead program with people of middle and upper income who have attended Bridges out of Poverty training. Circles stems from an innovative model based on a body of research that suggests in order to help people out of poverty relationships need to exist within the wider community giving lower income families social networks to support and thrive.
The aims of Circles™ are to:
– provide emotional and practical support
– assist with complex issues and solve problems together
– build the ‘social capital’ of people living in low income situations
– show the community the very real barriers holding people in poverty
– walk with people in poverty and support life change
– put into practise the theories learned in Bridges out of Poverty and Getting Ahead.
The Circles™ approach has been used in over 100 communities and districts in the US and Canada. It is a proven and credible initiative that makes real and on-going change for individuals and communities. Circles™ will be launched and piloted in Huntsville in the Fall of 2016 and will follow in Bracebridge and Gravenhurst over the next five years.
Circles™ comprises of:
Circle Leaders – an individual or family of low income who has completed the Getting Ahead course who is interested in becoming self-sufficient. The Circle Leader works with Allies to build his or her plan developed during Getting Ahead
Allies – community members trained in Bridges out of Poverty who support and mentor Circle Leaders in the journey. Allies engage in an intentional, caring relationship with an individual or family working to become self-sufficient.
Weekly community meetings of Circle Leaders and Allies and other interested community members to provide support and networking opportunities over a meal. Allies also meet monthly on an individual basis with Circle Leaders. Big View meetings are held once per month and feature a far-ranging discussion of the causes of poverty in the community and how to address them thereby creating systemic change along the way.
There are many ways to get involved in Circles™. Please contact Liz Angell by using the information on this page to contact YWCA Muskoka.
My practice is built upon great client relationships. I’m very passionate and take great pride in helping families and businesses achieve financial success. We achieve this by building a strong, personalized financial plan, no matter the life stage, net worth or circumstance.
No two people are alike; no two situations are alike; finances change as life changes; life is full of planned and unexpected events. As such, I help prepare for, or navigate around, life’s circumstances by maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks.
I contribute much of my time providing resources and information by way of financial literacy workshops and presentations on various financial topics, empowering everyone I reach to make wise financial decisions.
CREATIVE ONE® has been providing creative online website experiences since 2010. Daniel Bradbury has been an entrepreneur in this space more than a decade. Beginning when websites were more of a novelty, so many things have changed from the increase in mobile use to the need for search engine optimization.
Listening to our clients, understanding the problems they would like to solve in their businesses using technology is the cornerstone of what we do.
Each project we undertake is highly personalized to the client we are working with and strategically designed to promote growth in their business. An exciting aspect of our work is designing and developing websites that are memorable and stand out from the competitors in their space.
Muskoka is not only a beautiful place to work but it’s also a community of many successful and highly motivated business owners. We consider ourselves privileged to be part of this.
Would you like to present your business more professionally on the internet? We invite you to call or email: (705) 788-3932 or start@creativeone.ca
In my work as a Psychotherapist I find that the young people I listen to ask questions that are especially intriguing. For example, “Why am I expected to be so quiet and still at school?”; “What do I do if I hate school , I have no friends, and my family ignores me?”; “How can I learn to cope with loss when no one shows me how?”. But probably the most intriguing question is, “How can I feel normal again?”
I have always considered ‘normal’ to be boring and far, far overrated. I prefer to think about ‘normal’ as ‘happy’. In terms of mental health, the search for happiness has lead me to believe that unless our mind, body, emotions and spirit are ‘happy’, then our pursuit to feel like ourselves, or to feel ‘normal’, will be never-ending.
Mental health is not just about the mind. Our physical body is a projection of how we are doing mentally, and feeds our mind the physical resources required to keep mentally healthy. Our emotions are directly controlled by our mind, a product of how we think about events in our lives. Our spirit can be a powerful tool for the health of our mind, mentoring the decisions our mind has to make every second of the day. Essentially, mental health is tied directly to the well being of our entire selves – our happiness.
So do I try and help the young people I work with be ‘normal’? Absolutely not! Do I strive to help them help themselves so that they can be happy and feel the accomplishment of working hard at it? I think so. Do I help them focus on their entire self and not just their mind? I think so … but maybe I’m not normal?