Thrive PEC: Building a collaborative vision for the future

POSTED: JANUARY 19, 2023 AT 9:38 AM / BY WELLINGTON TIMES – Link to Article

Starting in July 2021, community representatives from Prince Edward County began participating in a national communities economic pilot looking at ways to shape the economic future of a community so that it is inclusive, equitable and sustainable. Community discussions and workshops began here in April 2022, with the aim of starting a process that will serve the community in a way that is appropriate. THRIVE PEC seeks to develop a collaborative vision for the future of the County. “THRIVE is an architecture for collaboration that’s really focused on our community economic development,” said Katy McIntyre, Community Activator for THRIVE PEC. “It’s a partnership of organizations coming together to sort out where we want to be in the next 10 years, and what we can do as a community to drive that. We want to make sure, as a community, we’re seeing what we can do to envision and create the future that we want, economically and community-wise.”

THRIVE is an offshoot of the Shorefast Foundation, led by Zita Cobb, which chose the County as one of five locations across Canada to look at what is termed Asset-Based Community Development. “It starts by looking at what we have here, and when we went through the process we realized we have a lot of assets in the County—cultural, financial, organizational, economic—but we don’t really have a method or process or community place where all of those get to interact with each other and work together to build a better, brighter future,” said McIntyre. “We’re looking at building an inclusive and equitable future-thinking plan for economic development of PEC. That means everything from what kinds of businesses you want to thrive here, invest in here and grow here, but also for our people—our youth, our community members—making sure that everybody knows that they have a role to play in the way that they want in the development of our community economy.”

Over the past nine months there have been a number of events to encourage community conversations and solicit input of a vision for the future of the County. “We’ve heard a lot of themes that seem to be boiling down into nine different buckets, of which affordability is a really key concern. We know that housing is something that we, as a community, can take a lot of action in,” said McIntyre. “Our partners at Prince Edward Learning Centre are starting to look at the mechanisms we can use, such as land trusts and community benefit agreements when it comes to new development. By taking a stake in developing these tools together, we can hopefully shape and influence the housing conversation that we know needs to happen.”

PELC will be holding a three-part learning series on an approach to affordable housing, starting on January 30. Please contact Christine Durant at inspire@pelc.ca for more information.

THRIVE PEC will be holding a one-day symposium at PECI on March 25. “It is an opportunity for us to connect and catalyze the community for a future vision. There will be speakers, interactive hands-on sessions, and arts and culture. We will hear from other communities that are facing similar questions and challenges,” said McIntyre. The symposium is intended to be a day of networking, finding inspiration, enjoying food and having some fun. The topics for discussion and information will include such things as regenerative tourism, the circular economy and social enterprises. The goal is to inspire residents to have deeper and more informed conversations about the future of this community. It will be a place for the community to meet and connect and provide feedback about the development of a community action plan. “We need to make sure that it resonates, is informed and reflects the community where we are now and where we want to go,” said McIntyre, who added that volunteers are needed at the symposium. Please visit thrivepec.ca to join the community conversation.