WESTLOCK – The Town of Westlock is aiming to help low-income individuals and families with a proposed recreation assistance program that will offer up to 50 per cent discounted access to local rec facilities.
The program, included as part of a proposed Family & Community Support Services initiative dubbed WeCARE (communitiy activities reaching everyone), was outlined to councillors at their Aug. 23 committee of the whole meeting by community services director Gerry Murphy and Family & Community Support Services director Tracy Proulx. The recreation assistance program specifically, which will be administered by FCSS, is slated to come back for ratification at council’s Sept. 13 meeting — committee of the whole meetings are meant for only discussion.
“It’s about youth engagement, it’s about family engagement, it’s about increased health, it’s about crime reduction. There are so many things that this program accomplishes that … the presentation was meant to be brief, but you could have added 50 more slides in there to talk about all the benefits this program has,” said Coun. Murtaza Jamaly following Proulx’s presentation noting the program meets four of the town’s goals in its strategic plan. “We aren’t trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. This is the solution to something that our community has been asking for a long time and it’s finally here.”
Added mayor Ralph Leriger, who even brought up the notion of discussing it with the county to include the Tawatinaw Ski Hill: “This will be one of those programs that we as a council I think will be very proud of. I’ve talked a lot about this and council has talked a lot about this during our last budget cycle. I think this program checks all the boxes and then some actually.”
Fundamentally, the program is aimed at lower-income residents and will provide either a 50 per cent or 25 per cent discount for rec facilities and even the community assistance bus.
“We want to see more people using our rec facilities, so I think it’s a win-win,” said Coun. John Shoemaker.
“It checks a lot of boxes and fits into our strategic plan. Really we want to get our citizens as active as possible and this is a group we feel that isn’t as active as they could, or should be so I think this is a good move,” added Coun. Curtis Snell.
To receive the discount, residents will have to be income tested, similar to other FCSS programs like Tools for School and Santa’s Anonymous — as an example, a single person who earned less than $20,220 would be eligible for a 50 per cent reduction, while someone would made $20,221 to $26,426 would qualify for a 25 per cent discount.
For context, a one-year membership to Rotary Spirit Centre for an adult is $495, while a 12-month adult membership to the pool currently sits at $456.45. Meanwhile, a one-year family pass to the RSC is $1,140.85 and a one-year family pass to the pool is $1,050.95.
“The whole objective is that we really want to build on removing financial barriers and increasing residents participation. Barriers come in many different forms, but really financial barriers are what we’re looking at in this instance,” said Proulx.
“(It) would be gym passes, swim passes, fitness passes and even summer programing and we have the community assistance bus as well because there are low income seniors and $13 for a round trip is a big deal for them. (This is) a great opportunity to show that Westlock is investing in participation for all.”
Proulx and Murphy made note of the fact that the people who are being targeted aren’t currently using the facilities — Leriger noted that pool usage increases by 15 per cent on free-admission days. Proulx went to state that during their research they found that the majority of communities in the province offer similar income-tested, fee-reduction programs.
“In some people’s minds this might be considered a subsidy, or a reduction in revenue, but the reality is that for the most part the intended user of this program would not normally be coming into the building or contributing to the revenue stream,” Murphy explained.
“We see this is as an income generator not as a discount because we know these people aren’t coming through your doors right now,” she added.
Proulx also talked about the recently-formed WeCARE committee which includes FCSS staff, community members and volunteers. Although they’ve only started meeting, the hope is that the committee will plan seasonal events centred around holidays like Family Day and Heritage Day and even a National Truth & Reconciliation Day, which Proulx said is “something we would like to recognize as a community as a whole.”
“Events to bring people together is really what the whole goal is,” she explained. “It’s an idea that we’ve been exploring at FCSS for some time — the opportunity to connect and build relationships and socialize. With COVID recovery we need some social recovery from the pandemic restrictions and start rebuilding a sense of community and a sense of belonging and we thought that this program would be a good place to start.”
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