The Langdon Community Collective (LCC) is being recognized for their work bringing together community groups to meet current and future recreational needs in the community.
For these efforts, Langdon has won the Building Community Capacity category of the 2016 ChooseWell Healthy Community Awards.
“I was very excited to get this,” said LCC facilitator Lisa Baker.
The awards are put on by the Alberta Recreation and Parks Association (ARPA) through the ChooseWell program.
These awards reward community leadership that encourages healthy communities and active living said Baker.
Building community capacity is described as programs that increases community ability to improve health in the community through changes to processes, relationships and access to resources.
The win is significant for the community and the LCC volunteers she said. The LCC was competing against much larger communities that had paid staff working on their entries.
“What they’re doing is recognizing us as a leader for coming together as a community and developing policies and procedures to…make our community stronger towards building recreational and cultural opportunities for the residents,” she said.
The win reinforces the importance of the work that all of the organizations that make up the LCC are doing in the community.
“This award is proving and solidifying to me that Langdon is being a leader in terms of collaboration,” she said.
“They’ve been doing that successfully for quite a while,” said Rocky View County Councilor for Langdon Rolly Ashdown.
“I think they really deserve it,” he said, “they’re kind of trend setters.”
In addition to bragging rights, Baker believes that this will lend some bargaining power to Langdon and the LCC.
“I think our local and provincial and even federal representatives…will say wow look at what’s happening…in Langdon,” said Baker, “they’re doing something right we need to support these people while they’re strong and have lots of momentum.”
“It’s something we can use when we’re advocating for this community,” she said.
The award will be presented at a reception at the ARPA conference in Jasper Oct. 20.
For more information on the awards visit arpaonline.ca. or visit the Langdon Community Collaborative at langdoncc.weebly.com.
