Community programs foster friendships and learning for all ages

There is a lot of value in having community programs accessible to people of all ages. 

That is what Kristine Braun of the Grunthal Recreation Board is noticing. 

She has watched great relationships grow among the adults whose children attend some of the programs. 

“It’s really nice to witness a lot of friendships being made in these programs,” Braun says. “Because as a mom, and especially at this age, you're staying at home, you feel isolated. So, it's nice to see that moms get to come here and meet each other and have their kiddos meet and end up being friends.” 

Raelle Handley says that as a single mom, she really appreciates the affordable programs that are offered by the La Broquerie Leisure Services, especially the family movie nights. 

“They also have after-school programming like basketball, gym time, taking them out to do different activities and playgrounds and things like that. Sometimes those are free, sometimes you pay for them. But again, they do the sliding scale. And in Steinbach, we use the Jake Epp Library a lot. They have so many programs. It seems like they're always adding more things for different age groups.” 

The Jake Epp Library in Steinbach offers programs for people of all ages and most of them are free.

Handley says for kids who don’t like the cold and snowy winters, it would be great to see more indoor programming. 

“Especially physical stuff,” she says. “We'd love to see if there was a way to be able to get kids into the school gym somehow and just have access to the sports equipment, run around to burn off energy.” 

We often hear about the value of having community programs for children, and now we are learning about the importance of having programs for adults too. 

Susie Dyck of Steinbach took a pottery class as an adult and says it was rather unnerving. 

“I thought, ‘If I start this thing and I’m not good at it, I don’t want anyone to know.’ You keep it a secret. As adults, we don’t usually try things we’re not naturally already good at. So, it was a learning curve of figuring out that it’s okay to not be the best at this and just fumble your way through it, that’s fine. But I think as adults, we don’t usually do things that challenge us in that way.” 

She says it’s important for adults to have opportunities to try new things, even if it’s just for the fun of it.