Excess Snow Plus East Village Residents With Limited Mobility and Community Involvement = Success!

Snow really builds up in the main East Village Calgary intersection making it difficult for the many people who live in the area and who use walkers, scooters, wheelchairs and canes, to walk safely...

Calgary in the snow

(CALGARY) - This story is a good example of how ordinary people on the ground can cooperate locally to benefit their larger communities.

It is this principle that can be applied almost anywhere in the world. It's the kind of idea that can expand and become unstoppable to make the world a better place.

Excess snow + plus East Village residents with limited mobility + community involvement = success!

Snow really builds up in the main East Village Calgary intersection making it difficult for the many people who live in the area and who use walkers, scooters, wheelchairs and canes, to walk safely across the street to the Golden Age Club and to the local store and pharmacy.

I, and others from the area, have been in regular contact with 3-1-1, with Calgary Municipal Lands Corporation and with Alderman Druh Farrell's office about this. There are 3 different snow removal operations in place around the intersection and yet unfortunately a pathway across the cobblestone streets never gets cleared by any of them on a regular basis.

Friday afternoon, while mulling over the problem with friends at Hear's My Soul Cafe I had the idea that placing brightly coloured snow shovels at two corners of the intersection might inspire able bodied pedestrians to pick up a shovel.

Saturday morning I placed two of them, the shafts wrapped with brightly coloured heart shaped duct tape (yes, its true), on two corners and the magic happened within 15 minutes. I looked out the cafe window and saw a local able bodied senior and director of the East Village Neighbourhood Association begin to shovel a path. I joined him on the other side and we were joined by a local a business owner. Friendly conversations ensued including one with a City of Calgary Roads foreman (out to survey the area for snow removal plans) and with a Calgary Parking Authority Officer.
 
Wendy Lees
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