The art driven event from the event on Saturday, July 6th, held in conjunction with the amazing support of Kicking Horse Culture (KHC), was the first direct community engagement of the Golden Threads.
“KHC is proud to have organized this event in partnership with the Golden Food Bank. People came in expecting to stay for a few minutes and ended up spending hours painting, creating and sharing time with the community. We are grateful to have worked with artists Shasta McCoy, Kathryn Cooke and Hanako Nagao who facilitated their stations with curiosity and care. The art created at the event will live on into another stage of the poverty reduction strategy. Stay tuned to find out how you can get involved,” says Logan Thackray, KHC Executive & Artistic Director.
Who We Are
Golden Threads is a collaborative initiative of social services and community agencies, municipal and regional government, health services, business leaders, and caring residents of Golden and its surrounding Area A communities.
Our collaboration began in 2023 for the purpose of developing a “Common Agenda for Poverty Reduction in Golden and CSRD Area A”; a strategic visioning document that will serve to guide, focus, and maximize our collective impact.
Weaving a Stronger Community Together
The initiative is directed by a Leadership Roundtable, an action group composed of nonprofit organizations, representatives from local government, and business owners committed to supporting a resilient community where everyone has an opportunity to thrive.
Our focus is to shed light on the untold stories of those living with less in our community, and engage residents in the development of locally actionable strategies. We have the community willingness, a fantastic collection of committed professionals, big hearted citizens, and multisector support.
The art and story telling forum was a great way to get the word out while gathering folks in a creative environment. Further engagement will be on-going throughout the summer and into the fall. We are gathering data through a community well-being survey as well as through confidential one on one interviews.
The survey as well as the option to book an interview can be found on our website at www.goldenthreadsbc.ca.
Interview participants will receive a $40 grocery gift card for there time and one lucky survey participant will receive a $100 grocery gift card in a random draw. Our intent is to collect both solid quantitative data along with qualitative narratives. Data and stories will work together to build strategic community direction.
One further initiative of interest will be a travelling phone booth.
This phone booth will contain two separate phones. One will allow for the recording of personal narratives in response to prompts about times that folks may have experienced either living with less or experiences of resilience and support. These anonymous recordings will accumulate. The second phone will play these stories on loop. Participants can enter the phone booth, listen to stories from the community, and then add to the growing narrative with their own recording. We hope to have it up and running soon and then move it about the community over the next few months.
“There is far more to say about this initiative in terms of its breadth, the amazing variety and quality of community support, and the long term hopes of how this can live and breathe meaningfully and impactfully for years to come, says Caleb Moss.
