In 2014, your Bowen Island Community Foundation sponsored its first Vital Conversations to determine the needs of the community - straight from the people who live here. Since then, motivated individuals and over a dozen of our outstanding charitable organizations have stepped forward to address the improvement opportunities that were identified.
Through their passion and creativity, our community now has:
- A trail-friendly wheel chair so that all - regardless of mobility- can enjoy the quiet and beauty of nature
- A vibrant garden to welcome us home to Bowen
- Solar panels at BICS, teaching our children the responsibility of environmental stewardship
- High-quality meals delivered for free to people in need of meal support all around the Island
- A new Infant and Toddler Annex at the Bowen’s Children Centre to help nurture our most precious community members
- The Cove Commons — a multi-purpose and central public space for locals and visitors to gather, meet and share, providing an array of experiences that builds, expresses and enhances the character and culture of island life.
These initiatives – and many more – are powered by the people of Bowen. Your contributions to the Bowen Island Community Foundation have resulted in almost $400,000 in scholarships, bursaries, and grants to community initiatives proposed and led by Bowen’s charitable organizations over the past three years. Today, Bowen is a better place to live because of the leadership and efforts of local champions and your financial contributions.
In 2017, the Foundation wished to assess the current state of our local needs, identify priorities for individual and organizational action, and guide your Foundation’s community grant giving efforts. During this most recent Vital Conversations, a diverse group of sixty-one Bowen Islanders gathered for a morning in September and identified eight priority areas for making our community stronger.
This past Saturday, about fifty Bowen Islanders attended the release of the 2017 Vital Conversations report. Doc Morgan’s lower level was abuzz with anticipation of hearing the results. Soren Hammerberg, Chair of the Foundation, began the presentation with the hope that “this report will inspire and inform our community. The collective voices contained in this report speak to our common values and priorities.”
The eight priorities identified through the Vital Conversations are:
- Develop Housing for All: Housing is a complex and difficult issue encompassing diversity, affordability, density and seniors housing.
- Bring Healthcare Close to Home: The majority of Bowen residents get their routine or urgent healthcare services on the mainland. Accessing these off-island services can be a financial and emotional burden and when urgent care is needed, can jeopardize our health and well-being.
- Support our Youth: Bowen is a great place to raise children. However, it can become a challenging place as children grow older and spend greater amounts of time on the mainland for education, sports and social activities.
- Celebrate Diversity and Inclusion: Bowen is more homogeneous than it is diverse (meaning respect for and appreciation of differences in race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, abilities, sexual orientation, culture, education, and belief ). Bowen is home to few visible minorities and indigenous peoples. Services for the marginalized of our community are sparse. Although often uncomfortable, addressing these issues candidly and openly can be transformative.
- Increase our Volunteer Pool: As Bowen Island continues to grow, the need to increase our pool of volunteers becomes more and more important. Without more volunteers, we run the risk of volunteer burnout, potentially damaging our culture of activism and self-sufficiency.
- Create Gathering Places for All: A common gathering place—or places—is essential for a vibrant community. The more time we can spend together on Bowen, the stronger our community will be.
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Take Responsibility for the Stewardship of our Environment: A significant part of Bowen’s appeal to residents and visitors alike is the breathtaking and pristine beauty that surrounds us. We need to keep our environment consciously and deliberately in the forefront of all our decision-making.
The Vital Conversations participants also brainstormed possible actions to address each community priority area. Ideas like:
- Establishing a Housing Authority
- Launching professional development and training for local residents, primary providers and responders in such areas as emergency medicine, home care aides/workers and mental health
- Working with the West Vancouver School District to encourage required youth volunteer time be completed on Bowen
- Creating a paid position for a Bowen Island Community Volunteer Coordinator. These and more solutions plus additional details on the Vital Conversations process and results can be found at www.bowenfoundation.com/vital-conversations-2017. We hope you will make time to read this report. You’ll enjoy the insights and the stories.
Now is the time to continue to strengthen our community and move forward with these priorities. Once again, your Community Foundation will be granting funds to Bowen’s charitable organizations that step forward with impactful projects addressing one or more of the eight opportunities prioritized by community members at the Vital Conversations event. Ideas should be submitted by February 12 through the application process found at www.bowenfoundation.com/community-impact-fund. Grant recipients will be announced at our Annual Meeting on May 4.
Through Vital Conversations 2017, the diverse voices of Bowen Island identified and discussed what we’re already doing well and the priorities for making Bowen even stronger and better. Continued progress and success will depend on our community’s organizations and individuals stepping up and championing these ideas. By tapping into our shared values and aspirations and by focusing on the priorities for our community, we can be better. We will be better. Because our efforts and aspirations are powered by the people of Bowen.
