This past Friday, Inclusion Weyburn recognized two people and an organization who have helped them in several ways. Two of those receiving the Spirit of Inclusion work for the City of Weyburn, while the third was The Family Place. 

The city's Leisure Services Manager, Ryan Dale, and the city's Program Manager, Tina Clay, were presented with certificates by Jackie Wilson with Inclusion Weyburn Friday afternoon. 

"Tina Clay was one of the first people to partner with us when we tried to have inclusion camps, and they've gone over so well with her camp," Wilson explained, noting the camp started with six children with needs attending, to now running out of space to keep up with the demand, meaning, unfortunately, some children needed to be turned away. 

"Then last year, when Ryan here at the Spark Center started to have camps during the summer, he agreed to having some children come and join the camp here as well," Wilson added about Dale's contributions to the program. "They've both just been so wonderful to adapt their programs and help us to make it work, and work with our kids."

"It's been a great process working with the Inclusion (Weyburn) board and the volunteers on that board," Dale said of the program. "I'd also like to give a special shout-out to all of our staff here, our camp programmers, our inclusive programmers, our arts curator, our Spark Center programmers. There's a lot of people that put effort into these camps."

"Jackie Wilson came to us with this idea of opening up our Fun in the Sun camp to become an inclusive camp, so this inclusive aspect of it is we run our camp with typical campers and inclusive campers, and we do one-on-one staffing with the kiddos, and they have their sensory room, but they are mostly integrated into the program with the rest of the children," explained Clay. 

Family Place Inclusion AwardThe Family Place in Weyburn were recipients of the Spirit of Inclusion Award from Inclusion Weyburn. (Photo by Mack Kohl)

Judy Lumb, Assistant Director at The Family Place, explained how they have collaborated with Inclusion Weyburn over the years. 

"In the summertime, we have a summer program called Our Sunny Scholars, and we have some inclusion children that join our group as well, and we really feel it's very important to have that inclusion with our kids as well," Lumb explained. 

Wilson noted in the coming months, they will be recognizing other organizations in Weyburn that have done what they can to help out Inclusion Weyburn. 

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