Awards Honour Community Innovators
And the winners are: a park management committee, a shipbuilding project, a community-owned company, an IT organization, a regional development authority, and a retired community economic development (CED) practitioner.
Nova Scotia's first-ever Community Economic Development Awards celebrated CED's brightest innovators today in Halifax. The ceremony brought together CED practitioners, government representatives and community leaders to celebrate the winners' accomplishments and to recognize the importance of CED to the Nova Scotia economy.
"The winners of the Nova Scotia Community Economic Development Awards are a testament to the truly great things that happen when Nova Scotians work together toward common goals," said Manning MacDonald, Minister of Economic Development and Tourism. "They're proof that CED works and that it is vitally important to the well-being of the people of Nova Scotia."
"The people we honour today have worked exceptionally hard to advance the social and economic destinies of their communities," said Michael Horgan, executive vice-president and associate deputy minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
"They are successfully making their communities strong and vibrant places in which to grow up, and to live and to work."
The Cape Chignecto Management Committee, whose work brought together Cumberland County residents and representatives of three levels of government to create a magnificent wilderness park, wins the award for excellence in co-operation.
The Avon Heritage Society and the Avon Spirit Co-operative Ltd. are awarded the prize of best new ced project for their collaborative effort to build the replica of a 19th-century schooner and build the local economy at the same time.
For its success at diversifying the island economy, generating employment and hope for residents of Isle Madame after the collapse of the groundfishery, the Development Isle Madame Association wins for its contribution to economic growth.
The Strait East Nova Community Enterprise Network, an information technology partnership of the Strait school board and the Strait Highlands, Antigonish and Guysborough Regional Development Authorities, wins for innovation in community economic development.
The Kings Community Economic Development Agency, which is the regional development authority for Kings County, is awarded the prize for excellence in client service.
And Harold Verge, long-time CED practitioner affectionately known to his friends, colleagues and students as the "grandfather of CED in Nova Scotia," receives Nova Scotia's CED award for outstanding achievement.
The Nova Scotia Community Economic Development Awards are a program of the Canada Nova Scotia COOPERATION Agreement on Economic Diversification, which is managed by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Nova Scotia Economic Development and Tourism.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For profiles of the award winners, please contact Elizabeth Haggart or Mike Hayes at the above numbers, or check the Internet at http://eda.gov.ns.ca .