INNISFAIL – After almost seven years of determined local commitment to elevate the needs of Innisfail’s older citizens, the Government of Alberta is finally recognizing Innisfail as an age-friendly community.
The town now joins nine other similarly designated communities across the province.
Those include the cities of Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge and Beaumont, the Town of Olds, the rural municipalities of Cardston County and Strathcona County, and the villages of Glenwood and Hill Spring.
Innisfail’s designation as the newest age-friendly community became public at town council’s regular meeting on Jan. 8, which included a letter in the agenda package from Jason Nixon, minister of Alberta Seniors, Community and Social Services.
“I am pleased to recognize and congratulate the Town of Innisfail for its commitment to becoming an age-friendly community,” said Nixon in his letter to mayor Jean Barclay. “This recognition reflects the dedication of your council and citizens in assessing the needs of an aging population and providing a vision that will improve accessibility and inclusion of older persons, persons with disabilities and for everyone in the community as a whole.”
Nixon’s ministerial office is now making formal plans for an award presentation ceremony this spring in Edmonton, an event that will have Town of Innisfail representatives presented with the Alberta Age-Friendly Recognition Award certificate.
Ken Kowalchuk, manager of communications and marketing for the Town of Innisfail, said the genesis of the town’s drive to become an age-friendly community came as a result of the 2016 federal census, which revealed that Innisfail had an older population when compared to other Alberta communities.
Council then initiated a senior needs assessment, and in 2017 the Age-Friendly Action Plan Steering Committee was formed with a mandate to review the assessment and make recommendations, including making Innisfail an age-friendly community.
Three years later in 2020 the town then hired Sandy Wacker as the town’s age-friendly facilitator. Her job was to build a community action plan.
In 2021 the Age-Friendly Community Committee was created by council, and its focus was to create the action plan.
“There are different pieces to this puzzle that we need to work towards,” said Karen Bradbury, Innisfail’s former community and social development coordinator, to town council on March 8, 2021. “Right now, with this today council is committing to become an age-friendly community.”
The action plan was approved by town council in 2023.
And now nearly three years after Bradbury’s pitch to council, and the town’s application to the provincial government last July, the news has come from the Province of Alberta that Innisfail is becoming an age-friendly community.
“I have to acknowledge the work done by our Innisfail Age-friendly Community Committee. This group of volunteers has helped to move Innisfail forward with this initiative, and they really are the reason why we’ve achieved the official designation,” said Wacker.
Barclay has always had a special attachment for seniors. She has been a volunteer with the Community Partners In Action, which spearheaded the town’s successful award-winning Dementia-Friendly Initiative; a 15-month community project that began in early 2020 and carried over into 2021.
The mayor said she was “excited” to see the provincial age-friendly designation finally come to fruition.
“And I think it fits so well with the dementia friendly community initiative that we've undertaken,” said Barclay. “We tend to think of older adults but it's really about being an age friendly community. Whether it's family-friendly, or older adults, how do we make a community accessible and available and ensuring there's social connections?
“It's really all come together,” added Barclay. “The credit certainly goes to Sandy and the work she has been heading up.”
