Wildfires ravaged the Fort McMurray area three years ago, yet thousands of people there continue to face complex struggles that still plague their northern Alberta community.
Entire families forced to evacuate during the fires continue to deal with impact of losing their homes and community connections. Coupled with job losses from the economic downturn that hit Alberta’s oil patch in late 2014, the double blows continue to cause difficulties for many in the region.
“Need for mental health support has climbed significantly here over the last few years,” says Paula Galenzoski, Project Manager of the Integrated Youth Hub, Canadian Mental Health Association, Wood Buffalo Region.
“It’s really hard to separate impact of the wildfires from just the overall economic downturn. It’s all created tremendous stress for so many people.”
Wildfires alone forced about 80,000 residents to flee the area and destroyed at least 2,400 structures. In their wake, charitable non-profits tasked with helping victims of the fire and economic downturn also faced their own challenges – shortages of volunteers and board members; increased competition for funding; fewer overall donations; more demand for existing services; overloaded staff; plus demands for ‘new’ services and products to help people get back on their feet.
So Paula Galenzoski was ecstatic to see what a team of students and professionals working together in southern Ontario could donate to support the Integrated Youth Hub, Canadian Mental Health Association, Wood Buffalo Region.
“I was truly dumbfounded,” said Galenzoski, after seeing materials produced for Fort McMurray. “We’d spoken earlier, but the students took a completely blank slate, totally understood our challenge and perfectly hit the target.”
The Fort McMurray non-profit was among 15 charities that received direct support from a one-day blitz called the Creative Day for Social Good (CD4SG), organized by Capacity Canada and its partners.
CD4SG brings together more than 100 students, professionals and volunteers to create graphics, public relations and marketing materials that charities might not be able to produce or afford on their own.
Teams working at Google’s offices in Kitchener were tasked to create branding for 15 organizations, chosen from 72 that applied for the Capacity Canada program.
With the Fort McMurray project, the students’ aim was to encourage more youth in that area to actively turn to the Integrated Youth Hub for support. The team chose to use ‘connections’ as their theme, to try to encourage more youth to actively engage with mental health initiatives in the area.
They produced a new slogan: “Connect. Support. Heal”, supported with a full range of logos, banners and elements for use in other media.
“It’s an ongoing problem in their area,” notes Bob King, a Capacity in Canada executive-in-residence, who worked with the creative team at CD4SG. “A lot of families were split up and are under a lot of pressure. That certainly hasn’t gone away and restoring their connections is vital.”
Beyond CD4SG, the community continues to need a full range of assistance.
In June, the Alberta government earmarked $400,000 for CMHA Wood Buffalo to support the organization’s Recovery College, launched in January to provide free courses to help people dealing with numerous issues. The province has pledged $100 million over the next four years to combat mental health and addiction issues.
Several years ago, CD4SG was involved with early efforts in Fort McMurray right after the wildfires. The one-day event, previously known as CreateAthon, had served non-profits in Waterloo and Wellington regions until 2016 and then expanded focus that year to help non-profits in Fort McMurray.
This year, at the same time as products from CD4SG in Kitchener were outlined for the Fort McMurray group, Capacity Canada CEO Cathy Brothers was in the Alberta community for a board governance boot camp.
CD4SG now accepts applications from non-profits nationwide and delivers more than $100,000 of pro bono work during the overnight event.
Challenges facing each charity selected for CD4SG are met with enthusiasm from the students and professionals, who donate their time to ensure each project meets clear objectives, within a tight 24-hour deadline.
Among other groups that received a wide range of materials from CD4SG this year were:
- Active Lives After School, Dufferin County;
- Bay Area Restoration Council, Hamilton;
- Boost Child & Youth Advocacy Centre, Toronto;
- Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Toronto;
- Engineers Without Borders Canada, Toronto;
- Lakeridge Health Foundation, Oshawa;
- Matthews House Hospice, Alliston;
- Pride Toronto, Toronto;
- Reaching Our Outdoor Friends, Kitchener;
- Reep Green Solutions, Kitchener;
- Renfrew and Area Senior’s Home Support Inc., Renfrew;
- Sensity Deafblind and Sensory Support Network of Canada, Paris;
- Skills for Change, Toronto;
- Vera Causa Opera, Cambridge.
For Pride Toronto, a CD4SG team designed a new application for online and mobile use year-round, rather than just during the mid-summer Pride Toronto festival, to help more people reach and support the organization. Already more than a million people take part during the Toronto Pride festival, one of the biggest pride events in North America.
An online app was used during the 2019 event, but the organization was looking for something to go beyond their showcase event, to work 24-7, 365 days of the year.
“We’re super thrilled with the outcome,” said Primeau Alan, Branding and Marketing Manager for Pride Toronto and a 2011 graduate of Conestoga’s graphic design program. “To see what the students were able to produce for us, it will be a game-changer for our organization this year.”
A proposed new app created during CD4SG contains strong calls to action to join the community where you belong, join them on Twitter and across other social platforms, plus find information about what Pride Toronto throughout the year.
Also included in the draft app are elements to allow online purchases. Ideally, the tool would be embedded in the app, so users can easily see what’s available and make a purchase.
At Engineers without Borders, their work to fight poverty in Africa is well known beyond Canada. Yet the organization recognized that its former name, focused on engineers, could limit who feels they can contribute and take part in their programs.
More than 30,000 members belong to the organization, but the goal set for the student team at CD4SG was to support its new name (EWB Canada) and website (ewb.ca) with new marketing designs and collateral materials to reach much broader audiences.
Design elements developed during the Creative Day included updated icons using EWB’s existing brand colours to catch the eye of other professionals: those in political studies, business, social justice or humanitarian issues. The icons also were incorporated into a draft brochure, a stand-up poster for recruitment events, and video for social media and other uses.
“No matter who you are, no matter what skill set you have, you can play a part at EWB,” the student team explained as they unveiled work to their client.
At the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in Toronto, they identified a need to engage more youth frustrated by how political and legal systems fail some Canadians. The CCLA offers a “Rights Camp”, which are two, one-week sessions for high school students from grades 10 to 12, to develop skills to become an advocate for change in society.
Using a range of design and public relations strategies, the students created 10 different elements aimed to reach different youth.
“It was a pleasure to get to work with this amazing group of Conestoga College students,” said Lynne Short, vice president at the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation and an advisor with the student team.
“Ten deliverables in 13 hours. Impressive!”
