All in St Thomas
Through a donation of $155,000 from the Estate of Donna Vera Evans Bushell, the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority will be creating the first ‘water trail’ in Elgin County by allowing enhanced public access to the Dalewood Reservoir and Kettle Creek and purchasing canoes and kayaks for community members and visitors to use.
On May 14, 2020, the St. Thomas Economic Development Corporation announced a new artist development program in conjunction with GROW, the Elgin/St. Thomas Small Business Enterprise Centre, and Railway City Tourism. GROW began in 2019 as a short-term pop-up retail space available to small businesses looking to test a brick and mortar model. Through feedback from users, the partnership is being redeveloped into a longer-term accelerator space that will open in the Caboose at the Jumbo Memorial as soon as it is feasible to do so in accordance with COVID-19 reopening phases. The GROW program is possible through a partnership with Fanshawe College. Financial support for the project has been generously provided by a private donor in collaboration with Andrew Gunn Consulting & our team at young & free press.
During the pandemic, I have definitely noticed through speaking with my extended family and on social media that many people are stretching out their food supply as much as possible. This leads me to this question: when things return to normal, will the same standard apply?
This pandemic is tough on everyone. We are cooped up in the house all day, unable to see anyone. It feels like there’s really nothing to do and it can be very hard to stay positive in a time like this. From the teenage perspective, we want to be free and go out, and we really miss our friends who we are used to seeing every day at school.
Throughout the course of this pandemic, we have noticed the effects on our social lives, relationships, businesses, families and friends. What has the impact been so far on seniors, who contribute so much to our communities as cherished family members, volunteers and donors?
Online schooling has been in place for a little less than a month now. When the announcement that we would be beginning online classes first came out, I was a bit worried. I’ve never taken an online class before, so I was unsure of how this would fit into my life.
The past few weeks have been very confusing for students. One of the hardest parts of the COVID-19 outbreak has been the overwhelming sense of uncertainty. There are many questions: Will we be returning to school this year? Will we be starting online classes? For high school seniors, the biggest question is obvious: will we be graduating this year? If not, what happens to our post-secondary plans? We have been given no answers, and that is scary.
March 2020 was supposed to be a fun month for me. Starting off with celebrating my 18th birthday, I would follow that with a week-long vacation in Cozumel, a Billie Eilish concert in Detroit, and the chance to see a production of Hamilton: An American Musicalat the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto. All of those plans were quickly derailed within a few days. Postponed family celebrations, shortened trips and cancelled performances became my new reality.
Just like driving to a concert and feeling excited for the show, our team at young & free press has developed a way to travel to a community and imagine the whole setting as the performance. We call this life-art … the experience may contain music, paintings, theatre, sculptures, books, virtual reality, sports, businesses, video games, natural environments, culinary experiences, and roadside attractions, but we like to imagine the total picture.
Recently Andrew Gunn and I met with Sandy Westaway, who runs the Inn Out of the Cold shelter in St. Thomas. Needless to say, I learned a lot about the homeless people in our small town and the details shocked me.
Feeling the need for a jolt of energy to renew the landscape of downtown St. Thomas, multiple organizations and individuals have come together with the aim of making the city one of the true ‘street art capitals’ of Canada!
One thing that our young & free press team has learned since we started-up the business is that there are remarkable things happening every day in our communities … we just have to jump in and explore! Well, we now have the opportunity to take this spirit to a whole new level: beginning this spring, we will be collaborating with the Southwest Ontario Tourism Corporation to present some fun new content on our Instagram page!
Our team at young & free press loves to collaborate with community partners on fun, innovative projects. What’s next? Well, we are excited to help establish new ‘pop-up shops’ around southwestern Ontario, beginning with the first site in our home-base of St. Thomas!
Our team at young & free press is excited to announce that we are partnering with the Elgin Theatre Guild to present Hawksley Workman at the Princess Ave Playhouse in St. Thomas on Monday, May 20th – the perfect way to finish off the May long weekend!
Hayhoe Homes, the St. Thomas / Elgin Regional Campus of Fanshawe College, and the team at young & free press have come together on a special project to build 'little free library' boxes for the whole community!
Adults don’t look at social media from the same perspective as teenagers. Sometimes adults don’t fully understand the apps. Teenagers use social media differently than most might think. They are more than aware of every picture they post and how those images will be received by
Well St. Thomas, set your expectations high! We have a new Mayor and Council at City Hall, our community is growing, and there is a hint of cultural transformation in the air. In our view, we think that St. Thomas can become the next great destination in southwestern Ontario for twenty-something entrepreneurs, tradespeople and makers, young families, and active retirees. Seriously, why not?
Joe Preston was elected Mayor of St. Thomas in the October 22nd municipal election with a total of 3,731 votes, defeating the incumbent, Heather Jackson (3,189 votes) and two other challengers, Steve Wookey (2949 votes) and Malichi Malé (338 votes). With four candidates in the running, there was not going to be a landslide, but the margin of victory was still decisive.
Our young & free press team has been heavily involved in the St. Thomas municipal election this year. We have interviewed all the candidates for Mayor and several of the candidates for City Council.
We are surprised still to meet people in St. Thomas who do not know where the Horton Farmers’ Market is located. For the record, the Market is located on Manitoba Street, just north of Talbot. This does not mean that the Market is quiet on Saturday mornings … not at all!
