Trillium Mutual Insurance has a long history of contributing to the development of rural Ontario through the Farm Mutual Re. Mutual Support Initiative. Trillium recently donated $10,000 to Gateway's “Farmers Mental Health & Resiliency Project”. Many rural residents, including farmers, are dealing with much more uncertainty and stress in their day to day lives. This has been amplified by COVID-19’s disruption to the agricultural industry. The need for mental health support has never been greater.

The “Farmers Mental Health & Resiliency Project” will empower the farming community, by increasing the awareness of available health services, providing support to curb the stigma attached to mental health and resiliency training.

“Trillium Mutual is a community focused organization and we believe in promoting education and sustainability across rural Ontario. We believe that our partnership with Gateway will help many in these communities get the assistance they need”, said Tracy MacDonald President & CEO of Trillium Mutual insurance.

Trillium Mutual’s donation will be put towards developing the “Farmers Mental Health & Resiliency Project”. This project’s main objective is to strengthen and educate the farming community and will directly impact Huron-Perth & Grey-Bruce counties and their over 12,500 farmers. The program will engage and empower the agricultural community to begin asking questions surrounding their mental health and the role it plays in influencing their day to day actions.

Gateway received a Community Grant from the Town of Goderich to support their 2020 Speaker Series fundraising initiative.

“Whether parents have chosen the bricks and mortar school or remote learning for their children or teens’ back-to school-experience, it’s important as a community to support parents anyway we can. It sounds like these documentaries will share important information about the impact of unlimited screen time on today’s youth and provide tips to help children and teens navigate the digital world safely” – Mayor John Grace.

Mayor John Grace agrees there are many positives of screen time for children and teens, like connecting with distant grandparents, friends and teachers, as was the case with remote learning March through June. Screen time has been a lifeline and a new reality for many parents trying to work from home. But there are undoubtedly negatives evolving too such as addiction to gaming.

Larry Otten of Larry Otten Contracting is also pleased to sponsor the Gateway virtual Speaker Series event,  Screenagers. 

“We have been active supporters of Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health for the past three years and we are pleased to assist with this new presentation that is so relevant in these COVID times. A growing concern for parents is the amount of time that their children of all ages are spending on their devices. The lockdown associated with the pandemic has added to the screen time children experience. We hope that this presentation will help to inform parents and help them to understand the effect of prolonged screen time on their children’s brains, and general well-being”. - Larry Otten

If you want to learn more about our upcoming event, Screenagers click here. 

Loreena McKennitt of the Falstaff Centre (Stratford) will be joining us during our October 1st dialogue!

Loreena is a privacy advocate, an international artist, Honorary Colonel of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Owner/Director of The Falstaff Family Centre. Her perspectives and insights will be a great addition to our conversation around Screenagers, a documentary about growing up in the digital age. We look forward to chatting with you Loreena! 
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If you’d like to join us please register online @ https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/116129493441

Tickets to our second documentary The Next Chapter (online screening+ dialogue event) are on sale! Purchase your tickets today @ https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/116131706059

If you register for this event you will be able to view our second featured documentary in our series, The Next Chapter, in an "on demand" fashion. This will allow you to view the documentary at your leisure during our 2 week viewing period from October 8 to 22, 2020.

​We hope you will join us as we engage in online community conversations around this topic. We will be offering an online Question and Answer Session on topics and issues raised in The Next Chapter on October 22nd at 7 pm. This online Zoom conversation will be moderated by Tanya MacIntrye, an Addiction Recovery Facilitator, as well as other experts in the field.

We are offering a 2 part series of online screenings of insightful documentaries that take a personal approach to exploring the struggles around screen time and the online world within the family context.
If you register for this event you will be able to view our first featured documentary in our series, Screenagers, in an "on demand" fashion. This will allow you to view the documentary at your leisure during our 2 week viewing period from September 17 to October 1, 2020.

​We hope you will join us as we engage in online community conversations around this topic. We will be offering an online Question and Answer Session on topics and issues raised in Screenagers on October 1st at 7 pm. This online Zoom conversation will be moderated by Tanya MacIntrye, an Addiction Recovery Facilitator, as well as other experts in the field.

Buy your tickets today @ https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/116129493441

Gateway CERH is offering a 2 part series of online screenings of insightful documentaries (Screenagers and The Next Chapter) that take a personal approach to exploring the struggles around screen time and the online world within the family context. We are planning on offering these documentaries in an on-demand fashion and engaging in online community conversations around this topic.

We will be offering an online Question and Answer Session on topics and issues raised in Screenagers on October 1st (at 7 pm) and on October 22nd (at 7 pm) we will be chatting about concerns brought up in The Next Chapter. These Question and Answer Sessions will be moderated by experts in the field.
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Details on how to purchase your tickets will be posted shortly. Stay tuned!

On Thursday August 13th 2020 Rotary Club President Mike Strickland presented a cheque for $5430 to Nancy Simpson, Secretary of the board of directors of Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health (Gateway CERH) to support the Lonely No More Program.  
 
The Lonely No More (LNM) program consists of weekly teleconference calls between isolated seniors, facilitated by trained community members (volunteers). This program creates three components of support: peer support, health coaching and system navigation. The LNM program was originally piloted in 2019 and based on its success it was re-launched earlier this year. Due to the program’s positive impact and new partnership developments (e.g., MacKay Seniors Centre / Senior Centers Without Walls, Rotary Club of Goderich etc.), Lonely No More was able to offer weekly chats for the past 7 months (January to July 2020). The program is expected to start up again this fall. 
 
Gateway CERH would like to thank Rotary Club of Goderich, the IODE, MacKay Seniors Centre / Senior Centers Without Walls and the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy for supporting this rural based initiative this past year as well as our volunteers and leadership team. Gateway CERH looks forward to serving our rural seniors again this fall. 

​Today is Meghan Wild-Deny’s last day with us as one of our summer students. We greatly appreciated all the work and effort she has put into our Farmers’ Mental Health Project. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors! Thank you Meghan!