Paramedic Todd Kunz, right, instructs Lacey Point residents on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Residents used a grant to bring their neighbourhood together. (Contributed photo)

Few neighbourhoods are taking advantage of grants that help residents get to know the people around them, says Janis St. Louis, who recently, for the third year in a row, organized a barbecue in her Lacey Point neighbourhood.

The grants of up to $500 are available through the Community Foundation of South Okanagan Similkameen’s Neighbourhood Small Grants program.

“The idea is to hold a neighbourhood event to get to know your neighbours, reduce isolation, build community pride and legacy and share skills and knowledge,” said St. Louis.

This year’s event was held Aug. 11 following a successful grant application in the spring.

Her neighbourhood this year held an instruction session on CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and use of an AED (automated external defibrillator) taught by Osoyoos paramedic Todd Kunz.

St. Louis said she first learned about the grant program when she read about it in the paper three years ago and she and some neighbours decided to apply. It’s brought the neighbourhood together.

“A lot of people hadn’t even met each other and had been there for 10 or 11 years,” she said. “They didn’t know everybody on the street.”

That first event in 2016 helped bring neighbours together, to watch out for crime, and to keep an eye out for each other.

They decided at the first event to develop a contact list, with emergency contacts, which they shared. It included how to reach families of elderly people, where their children might be living elsewhere.

“I think it makes for a community feeling safer,” said St. Louis. “There are a lot of people that live on their own and they didn’t know the people three doors down. But now, people check on each other more.”

Asked why she thinks more communities don’t take advantage of this grant program, St. Louis said she thinks some people may perceive it as being too difficult to apply for the funds and organize an event.

But she said the application process only took a few minutes to do online and you just need two or three people in a neighbourhood to organize an event.

“The benefits far outweigh the amount of time it takes to do,” she said. “I’m sure there’s somebody in every neighbourhood who’s an organizer.”

This year was the first that included an education component in the barbecue and St. Louis said she was impressed that Kunz was able to provide the CPR and AED instruction at no charge.

“This year I thought let’s do something that adds another element to it,” she said, noting that the average age in the neighbourhood is high and it’s sometimes been necessary to call an ambulance for people.

Although some people such as St. Louis and her husband Marcel have taken CPR previously, she thought it would be useful to offer neighbours a refresher. Kunz let people try it out using mannequins.

“Having the hands-on practice gave us a good feel for how fast to compress and how much pressure to give,” she said. “Crack those ribs if you must. It’s better than the alternative.”

The next intake for Neighbourhood Small Grant applications is in March 2019.

For more information, visit: cfso.net/neighbourhood-small-grants/.

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times