Peggy Lynkowski has watched once barren fields in Heritage Lakes sprout into the vibrant, active community she proudly calls home.
While building out the neighbourhood has taken years, fostering a sense of community happened from the ground up. The Heritage Lakes Community Association has put neighbour in touch with neighbour for 18 years and, though there have been a few bumps along the way, members have never lost their community-centric focus.
"I love it here. I would not move out of here," says Lynkowski, a Heritage Lakes resident since 1990 and current president of the community association — the only such formal association in St. Albert.
The volunteer-driven group holds weekly sports night activities and supports crime-reducing initiatives like Neighbourhood Watch. It also puts on larger gatherings from the annual Canada Day pancake breakfast to the more recent Olympic-themed Family Day Winter Games.
In Lynkowski's mind putting on these types of events is more fun than work, and the rewards pay dividends.
"When you see people come together like this it's so satisfying to know families are important," she says during a short break from festivities at école La Mission.
That's not to say running a community association is an easy job. Almost two decades after it formed the group is grappling with declining membership that has dwindled to about 70 — half of what it was during its peak in a community of about 3,000 homes.
Lynkowski says volunteer burnout reached such a point they nearly packed it in four or five years ago. In spite of its difficulties the association soldiered on with its goal.
"We're building a sense of community."
Changing community
The definition of community has been a hot topic of late within the walls of the St. Albert Community Hall. Once a hub of activity and gatherings, the Perron Street facility faces an uncertain future as the building shows signs of its nearly 70 years.
The building requires expensive repairs to make its kitchen functional and the roof needs replacing in the next decade, says Vic Charlton, president of the St. Albert Community League.
The league doesn't operate like a community association like Heritage Lakes, which offers programming. Its main function is limited to operating the community hall, but even that has been challenging amid declining membership.
Charlton says the league is aiming for a resurgence with an expanded role in the community. It recently put out a call to arms among local not-for-profit agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the hopes of aligning common interests.
"We would like to see the hall, which is our asset, to be not just the physical focal point but the organizational and community focal point for NGOs where NGOs can bring their thoughts and ideas about how the community in which we live can be improved," Charlton says.
St. Albert's growth to a city of nearly 60,000 has changed not only the prominence of a facility like the community hall, but also the idea of community itself, he says.
"We have lost somewhat the community spirit. I don't think there's any deliberate intention for each to go his own way. I just think the idea of community has somewhat dissipated because of the size and rapidity in which St. Albert has grown.
"What we'd like to do is put community back into St. Albert."
Margaret Plain agrees St. Albert's sense of community has changed — in some good and bad ways. The former alderwoman is the current chair of St. Albert's 150th anniversary committee, Rendezvous St. Albert, a position that has put her in touch with the pulse of community.
Declining membership is a reality for many traditional clubs that started in the 1950s, and in many cases services the community used to offer are being formalized by government and other groups, she says. For instance, family support programs that used to be offered neighbour-to-neighbour several decades ago are now offered by organizations like Parents' Place.
"The support from the community shifted from unfunded and casual to more organized."
Our sense of community also reflects shifting family dynamics with the workplace expanding beyond St. Albert or Edmonton to the global economy. In many cases newcomers are just as likely to become involved in community activities in Edmonton or elsewhere, Plain says.
One of the 150th anniversary committee's goals is to increase local participation. The committee is planning a series of events in 2011, from a homecoming to a citywide family picnic spanning the length of Red Willow Park from Big Lake to Kingswood Park.
The ultimate goal of the celebrations is to have people learn more about their community, she says.
Mayor Nolan Crouse sees the loss of community identity as a problem not limited to St. Albert, but one facing smaller communities throughout North America. The solution requires active engagement not just from the city itself but all groups and residents.
"There's got to be constant reinforcement that you are St. Albert," he says.
The city has put renewed emphasis on activities as simple as block parties that put neighbours in touch with each other, often with a common goal like crime prevention, he notes. There also has been a focus to work with neighbourhoods to aggressively tackle problems like crime, as was the case recently with a rash of partying in the parks near Braeside and vandalism in Sturgeon Heights.
Supporting community groups is one of Roy Bedford's primary functions as a community recreation co-ordinator with the city. It's his job to talk to community groups about their needs and issues, helping them in any way possible without stepping on their toes. In Heritage Lakes that meant helping promote the Family Day event without getting involved in the nitty-gritty.
Bedford points out geographic links like community associations are only one way to foster community. Areas of mutual interest also put neighbour in touch with neighbour he says, and in that regard St. Albert appears healthy. The city deals with upward of 200 community groups, from sports organizations to school, parent or faith-based committees.
While the city does not dictate how organizations should operate, Bedford says it also has concerns about how to be more proactive about connecting with groups. That could be part of an upcoming departmental master plan review, but at this point it's too early to say what shape that will take, he says.
On a sunny Family Day in Heritage Lakes, Lynkowski knows her community association model isn't perfect, but it allows her neighbourhood to come together in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise. That's always been a priority in Heritage Lakes.
"When we first started out it was to make a better community," she says. "We're the best community in St. Albert."
