More than 150 people came to the civic centre last Saturday to give their input to the Redesign Rupert Recharge event and help shape the future of Prince Rupert.
The event is part of Redesign Rupert, a project focused on developing and implementing strategies for economic diversification and community resilience.
The original purpose of the day was to start taking the information that was gathered from the community mapping process and to “deepen the conversation on finding what were some long-term and short-term opportunities and actions to start building community capacity, resiliency and strength in Prince Rupert,” said project leader Krystin St Jean.
The project, which is a partnership between the City of Prince Rupert, Community Futures and Community Development Institute (CDI), encouraged residents to come out and contribute to the conversation about the future of their city.
St Jean, who is also the senior facilitator at CDI, said it was a great day.
“I would definitely say it exceeded expectations,” she said. “It was great to see a wide variety of people from the community come out. There were a lot of ideas generated from throughout the day that we can now take and do our next step.”
In the civic centre auditorium, there were five tables set up, each with a different topic and a team of facilitators. People were encouraged to participate at one of the tables based on their interests. They could then share their ideas and take part in the discussion.
The facilitators received a wide variety of input on topics such as housing, community culture and heritage, public spaces, economy and livelihood, and children, youth and families. These facilitators were members of the project’s community advisory group as well as other leaders in the community.
“The information that we received today, we’re going to review and analyze to see where some of the strongest ideas came from, where the strongest passion in the community is and we will take that information to start creating community action groups,” said St Jean.
Action groups, which is the next phase of the project, bring cross-sections of the community together around different topics to start moving forward with some of the ideas that were identified at this event. The first groups will get started later this fall, St Jean said.
Besides the action groups, the team will continue to find ways to engage with the public and try to reach as many people as possible to add their voice to the discussion.
There was a free pancake breakfast at the event, put on by the Knights of Columbus. There were also activities for the kids, so parents could join in.