First Nation opens community centre

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After a lot of planning, negotiating and hard work, Sweetgrass First Nation has realized its goal of creating a new community centre.

A fitness centre, kitchen, gymnasium, stage and balcony are all part of the new facility, a place where kids and adults can hang out, play sports or learn more about their culture. But Chief Rod Atcheynum and the other members of the Sweetgrass First Nation council believe the opening of the centre is just the beginning of a process aimed at educating youth culturally, athletically and academically.

The seed for the community centre was planted in 2000, when the former Sweetgrass council, under the leadership of then chief Tom Whitecalf, set a long-term goal to build a new school on reserve that would house students from kindergarten to Grade 9. Using reserves from Treaty Land Entitlement land leases and gaming, the band financed $1.9 million of the $2.6 million community centre project, the first step toward making the new school a reality. The community centre is located adjacent to the existing school and will be part of the educational complex when a new school is eventually built. About $530,000 of the project funding came from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).

Usually, whenever there is surplus money, there's always a demand for a per capita pay-out. During his four-year term, Tom Whitecalf and his council gave out two payouts, then council made it a priority to set aside the surplus money to invest into a new community centre.

The existing school houses nursery school to Grade 6, but there are plans to expand the school to include grades 7 and 8 this coming fall, Chief Rod Atcheynum said. And council also hopes to start a new program to provide Cree immersion for students in nursery school. The immersion program will expand its scope by one grade level per year, following next year's nursery school students right through to the end of Grade 8.

"We're hoping that by the time these students are done Grade 8, they'll be totally immersed in Cree," Atcheynum said.

Atcheynum hopes that with the new community centre, more residents will be encouraged to enroll their kids in the local school. One of the main concerns parents had about keeping their kids at the on-reserve school was that there was no access to recreational facilities.

Whitecalf believes this project is going to make Sweetgrass First Nation a better place to live.

"Hopefully that school will bring more kids and more of a community spirit," he said. "This is the most important building in the community as far as community spirit goes because it brings people of all ages together."