A new initiative between the federal government and the Regina United Way will see $15,000 coming to the southwest to support four organizations that work with seniors in the area.

The government has announced an investment of $88,000 into the Regina United Way through it's "New Horizons for Seniors" initiative. Those funds will be distributed through various agencies and organizations throughout the region that are helping vulnerable seniors in the area.

Stacey Schwartz is with Community Advancement with the United Way in Swift Current and area. She explained the criteria that the four organizations had to meet.

"There was a criterion of seeing that this funding really focusing on the isolated vulnerable senior population. Those that are in rural communities; don't have the access to certain services that urban residents would have. As well as looking at those with physical barriers that they're up against, mental health-related, looking at food...providing for basic needs."

As well, she added, of the demographic that each of the applicants was serving, 60 percent had to be in the 55 or over age range in order to ensure that the majority of this particular funding was for programs supporting the senior demographic.

The four organizations in the southwest that had successful funding applications were:

  • The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (Swift Current area);
    • $1,978 to provide regular virtual check-ins with clients and adapt programming to continue and reduce isolation and loneliness by clients who are blind and partially sighted.
  •  Southwest Homes Inc;
    • $3,370 to provide support services and transportation for medical treatments and appointments for individuals with an intellectual disability in the Swift Current community as community transportation is not an option due to the high-risk associated individuals.
  •  Shaunavon Food Bank;
    • $3,000 to increase their food supply in order to meet increased demand. 
  •  Spinal Cord Injury of Saskatchewan (Swift Current Area);
    • $6,652 to help seniors with physical disabilities navigate and combat social isolation, mental fatigue and socialization challenges through telephone check-ins and technology support.

For Schwartz, the ability to provide that funding to not only Swift Current organizations but to the entire southwest, is something that she credits with the increased collaboration with the Regina United Way since the local office closed in December of 2018.

"That's one partnership where they're looking at providing supports not just within their own city, but also Swift Current, Weyburn and Moose Jaw. And that's one partnership that prior to two years ago when we partnered with them and decided to close our physical location and office, this type of funding we wouldn't have had the capacity to actually do."

She credits it with allowing her to reach out farther into the surrounding municipalities to find needs like the Shaunavon Food Bank; something that will continue when a new round of federal funding is announced in the next week or so.

"I think sometimes our rural communities already feel like they fall through the gaps and the cracks when it comes to certain programming that comes out or funding. So going forward when we're looking at this next federal funding that we're going to be launching here, we're going to be really looking at southwest as a whole and relying on those partnerships to help us identify and really find those gaps and those needs that we can invest in."

She added that this current funding under the New Horizons for Seniors program is considered short-term to help combat COVID-19 challenges and that the aforementioned announcement regarding longer-term funding would be coming in a week or two.