July 9, 2016 was a memorable day for the LGBTQ community of southeast Manitoba. Steinbach’s first annual Pride march went off without a hitch. Concerns about protestors, or the presence of individuals who had uttered threats toward the event, weren’t realized. For a community where many people’s religious beliefs run contrary to the LGBTQ cause, Steinbach appeared a welcoming place.

For Imagine Mental Health Matters, it’s always been about taking the first step. The first step to ending the stigma that mental health issues carry. The first step to preventing suicide and directing people to the help they need.

The Citizen is approaching its first anniversary next month, and to celebrate we are once again increasing our distribution. Starting this month, all residents of Niverville, Île-des-Chênes, Ste. Agathe, New Bothwell, Otterburne, and Tourond will receive our paper in the mail, even if they don’t normally accept flyers. The paper’s total current distribution is pegged at 5,000.

Cue the summer of 1874, when the Dominion of Canada was seven years old and the Province of Manitoba only four, when Louis Riel himself was the Member of Parliament for Provencher, and when the population of Winnipeg was almost exactly the same as Niverville’s today (5,000). Niverville was nothing but a proposed stop on the new Canadian Pacific Railway, and the only so-called development there consisted of a couple of storehouses and stables which have all been lost to the sands—or, in Niverville’s case, swamps—of time.

Manitoba has a new government, and a new premier. On election night, Wab Kinew led the New Democratic Party to victory. The NDP dealt the incumbent Progressive Conservatives a crushing electoral blow, particularly in suburban Winnipeg.

American psychologist Charles E. Schaefer once said, “We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are at play.”

Human rights have been debated for thousands of years. History dates one of the earliest formal human rights declarations all the way back to 539 B.C. Under the rule of Cyrus the Great, the people of Persia were granted basic human freedoms which could not be overruled by governing authority. These new rights included freedom from slavery and the right to practice any religion.

As summer gets the best of us with weekends at the beach, summer camps, and lazy vacations, we tend to push physical activity to the side. Well, I’ll have you know I’ve been staying on-task, playing outdoor soccer once a week and attending a weekly bootcamp. And of course I take my daily walks with the dogs. I manage to get everything squeezed in during weekday evenings, but I know not all of us have that option.

Île-des-Chênes’ Optimist Park hosted a Blue Jays baseball camp July 20–21. Children aged nine to 16 from all over Manitoba, including one all the way from Thompson, came to meet four alumni Blue Jay players and gain some valuable skills.

Alex Grenier, a volunteer for Seine River Minor Baseball, applied for the camp to be held in Île-des-Chênes in November 2015. Every year, the camp is awarded to a different community in Manitoba. Last year, the Blue Jays camp was held in Brandon, and in previous years the camp has been held at Shaw Park in Winnipeg.

With summer in full swing, July has been a bit quieter on the fundraising front, but there’s still a lot going on behind the scenes.