Many ways to participate - stories from an urban ravine (Renfrew Community Centre)

The group at Renfrew is a very special one. It is the fruit of many efforts that are just starting to come together into a series of weekly workshops where seniors who had never access some of the services around their home are suddenly taking part of them as these take place in the lobby of their building.

The corner of Renfrew and 22nd Ave is in a way a hub of seniors services. Renfrew Park Community Centre and Renfrew Collingwood Seniors Society offer a wide array of services for people living in this beautiful area of the city. Three Links Care is a long term care facility next door and Three Links Manor is a subsidized housing for low income seniors.

The seniors at the Manor have traditionally have very little use of the services offered by the other organizations. It has almost been two years since their resident care taker is no longer at the building, and there have been growing tensions among the residents. Many of the people in the building do not know each other, and in some cases there are significant levels of distrust between them. Little acts of resentment from some of the residents could be seen as people where ripping off the notices and other ads in the building's bulletin board. This of course included all our posters for the program that tended to last a couple of days before they were gone from the wall.

Outreaching to the seniors at the Manor was is one of the primary goals of the Renfrew team. We are offering weekly workshops and making sure there is always cookies and coffee. Cheryl, the seniors worker from Renfrew Park comes to all the sessions, as well as Kara from Three Links Care. This is an exemplary strategy for reaching out to the more isolated seniors: the program is developed with them in mind, but instead of offering it at the community centre or the day care, it is taken right to the lobby of their building.

And we are also patient. Patient for more and more people to hear about these guys doing art in the lobby every Friday. Patient for the relationships to change between the residents and those of us who are perceived as the administrators. Patient for letting the participants slowly feel more confident about the group, the art work and the creative process.

It has been a month and a half of workshops and things have already started to change. During our Steering Committee meeting last night Kara share a very powerful story on how the residents have change the way they relate to her. Everyone at the meeting was thrilled to heart how people who were quite hostile to her in the past were now talking to here in very different terms. This is a paraphrase of her comment:
"The residents now talk to me in a good way when I go there. It is interesting to see this happening as a result of an art project."

This is the power of the arts. It creates a safe space where issues can be raised in many different ways, many of them less confrontational. It is also an example of the power of a team coming together with a clear goal. The united efforts of Shelley, Kara, Cheryl, Nancy, Carmen and Kim are really having an impact even at this early stage.

If you go to one of the Renfrew workshops, you will be welcome by a formidable host that although does not necessarily sits to do the art, he makes sure everything is in place for the workshop. He lets people in, helps with the cleaning (including washing paint brushes in the sink of his apartment), brings a garbage bag and keeps picking up anything left on the floor. This participant seems to be moving from going everyday to talk to the Director of Three Links Care about problems in the building, to bring reading material for a seniors reading group at the facility. If you go to Renfrew, he would very likely show you one of his many newspaper articles that he collects about the story of three links and other organizations in Vancouver.

There are many ways to participate in a community art project, but the impacts of doing so seem to reach them all.