It’s a Made in Guelph organization that brings together many pieces aimed at creating a better puzzle.
The Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition is just over five years old and unites 13 neighbourhood groups in the city and 10 partner organizations into one umbrella group that works to help provide programs and services in specific and unique neighbourhoods.
The goal is a unified one: “we’re all in this together.”
“I think we’re decently unique,” says GNSC Executive Director Brendan Johnson of the Guelph model.
Last year alone the member neighbourhood groups of the GNSC helped serve 50,000 people through 270 programs, events and services.
Those programs range from neighbourhood food banks and summer day camps to drop-in yoga clubs and English as a second language coffee get togethers.
The neighbourhood groups decide what to offer, the GNSC supplies whatever assistance is needed, including programming assistance if needed and all the legal stuff, including insurance.
The 13 neighbourhood groups range from Onward Willow, which has been in existence for over 30 years, to a few that have only been part of it for a couple of years. New ones are emerging and are interested in joining.
“Depending who lives there and what emerges, it really does vary from neighbourhood to neighbourhood,” Johnson said of what is offered.
In addition to paid staff, it used 1,500 volunteers who contributed 37,000 hours of work.
Johnson has had calls from Ivy League colleges and people in England asking about Guelph’s model.
“What I’ve seen (in other communities) is that they’re often run by the municipalities: there’s neighbourhood strategies and all these interesting things, but those are city-led departments who are helping run these strategies,” he said.
The city used to oversee neighbourhood groups in Guelph.
“It kind of became embedded in the city structure a little bit,” Johnson said.
To its credit, the city chose to separate it from City Hall and the GNSC was eventually formed, allowing more autonomy and flexibility.
Roughly $500,000 of the GNSC’s $800,000 budget comes from the city. The rest comes from other grant sources and donations.
Johnson said what helps make the GNSC model unique is that there are 10 committed, signed-on partner organizations that are part of the GNSC. They include both school boards, Immigrant Services, the Guelph Police and Public Health.
“It’s about building those relationships. People now have a face to that place” and helps neighbourhood groups get a better understanding of what partner organizations have to offer.
Those partner organizations attend meetings and help address neighbourhood concerns, working with those groups in an exchange of ideas and possible solutions.
They also listen to the neighbourhood groups.
On Tuesday the GNSC members and partner organizations “hung out” together at The Common coffee shop in Downtown Guelph to sit down with each other and hear what each other had to say.
The bottom line, Johnson said, is that the more people you know and the more people you engage with, the stronger your community will be.
“It’s kind of a decent secret, I think, in the city,” he said.
