PLUM COULEE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | Celebrating 20 Years

20 years ago, a southern Manitoba community was at a crossroads.

Plum Coulee was finding its new identity as a bedroom community as they transitioned from a farming community.

Growth was sluggish, businesses were moving out of the downtown, the town reservoir was unused and the historic grain elevator that had marked the town on the prairie landscape for decades was scheduled to be demolished.

It was then, with the help of a large donation to the community, that a group of visionaries came together to chart a new future and one important piece was the establishment of the Plum Coulee Community Foundation.

20 years later, the grain elevator still stands, renovated into The

Prairie View Elevator Museum honouring the legacy of Plum

Coulee. New walking trails have sprung up around the charming town, four downtown business blocks are refreshed, the Saidye Rosner Bronfman Town Square is developing with bright storefronts, and the inviting Sunset Beach still attracts swimmers all summer.

Where neighbours used to be excited to see one new home built a year, the community now sees many new constructions every year as the town itself has grown to over 1,000.

And it all centred around the work of the Plum Coulee Community Foundation and its faithful volunteers with a passion for their community.

In 2022, the group looks back on its 20th anniversary.

“Our community has gotten very young, there’s something about having walking trails and beaches and things like that in your community,” local resident and Plum Coulee Community Foundation board member Heather Unger says, adding the average age is only 26 in Plum Coulee.

“So it’s a very young town and probably some of that contributing factor would be this downtown core work. I’m a business person in this community so it’s resonated with me to keep the core of our community strong and to try and keep a central gathering point. You know, here we are 20 years later, and reflecting back the community

is doing well. And I like to think the foundation had a lot to do with it.”

Unger has been part of the Plum Coulee Foundation since the beginning. She explains it all started with the generous gift of the Samuel & Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation (SSBFF) 20 years ago.

In 2001, the Plum Coulee Centennial History Book was being written and contact was made with the family of Councillor Rosner who served in 1900, and daughter Saidye Bronfman of the SSBFF in Montreal. From that connection, together with the newly created Plum Coulee Community Foundation, they developed a five-year plan to flow through a generous $1 million gift from the SSBFF. The first year was a flurry of activity to channel the charitable funds. Avery Schulz, a local teacher took a leave of absence to help set up the development corporation which would begin the work of revitalizing the core of the community.

The community quickly came together to create focused committees to rebuild the town including the revitalization of the downtown core, eventually saving the grain elevator which would house the local museum, and establishing the Saidye Rosner Bronfman Town Square. Even the old water reservoirs were made a priority. They were cleaned up and a beach was developed, along with a catch and release pond.

During a time when many businesses were being drawn out to the highway, the founding members knew the key to the long-term success of the town was creating a strong downtown core as they transitioned from a farming community to a bedroom community.

Then in 2008, the Plum Coulee Community Foundation switched focus to establish a community endowment fund with $100,000

from the SSBFF partnership and $70,000 from the closure of the Plum Coulee Co-op. A second fund, a $100,000 Prairie View Elevator Fund is also established from the SSBFF partnership, and together the interest from each fund is granted annually.

Since then, the PCCF has made it its mission to grow the funds with the help of local volunteers and donors, providing a boost to a broad range of projects and local causes, as well as the Citizen of the Year Award and the Community Builder of the Past Award.

In 2016, the Youth in Philanthropy was founded, tasking grade 6-8 students with granting out $3,500 every year to Plum Coulee organizations and initiatives, while also taking part in local communitybuilding themselves through collecting donations for the food cupboard, and writing thank-you cards to medical personnel.

Now the foundation stewards over $700,000. Last year alone they were able to grant out a total of nearly $15,000 to 11 local organizations that touched on literacy through the Imagination Library, water rescue equipment for the local fire department, as well as sports, flower planting for the downtown area, the Pembina Valley Humane Society and the Plum Coulee Pedestrian Bridge project.

“As a new foundation, we had to almost go to every committee meeting and say, “Hey, how can we help you?” It takes a while for everybody to kind of figure out what this big savings account for Plum Coulee is all about,” Unger explains. “With the interest every year we can spread the joy around and we try really hard to spread it around to the seniors, kids, healthcare, and the arts, all the facets of the community.”

And while you always wish you had more, this year there’ll be $30,000 invested into Plum Coulee with special anniversary expenditures at the annual Plum Fest.

“So that’s a pretty nice little number that we’re able to spoil the community with.”

Born and raised in small town Manitoba, Unger believes if you want something new in town you have to put in the time and energy as a volunteer.

“To me, that’s what builds my community spirit is you know, the more energy I put into my community the more I love where I am.”

“The community foundation movement in Manitoba is the strongest in Canada. I’ve attended every conference. I love it. I love the energy of the people that are involved in community foundations, it’s just a really fun organization to be a part of. We’ve all been a part of organizations where we beat our heads against the wall to raise money. Well, this was a wonderful one where we actually get to give some away so it’s a feel-good thing for sure.”

To learn more, or to give a gift that will last a lifetime, visit endowmb. org/community-foundations/plumcoulee-community-foundation/

Check it out at Check it out at PLUM FEST! Friday Aug. 19 @ 7PM Saturday Aug. 20 @ 11AM

Peabody Award winning broadcaster Jowi Taylor presents his utterly unique project Six String Nation. It is ’The story of Canada as you’ve never held it before’ – a exploration of the diverse, sometimes celebratory, sometimes troubling, always moving narratives of Canadian history, geography and multicultural identity. A one-of-a-kind guitar called Voyageur contains and amplifies these stories, providing fascinating insights into what it means to be Canadian from countless perspectives.

He guarantees that everyone who encounters the project will find themselves reflected in the materials from which it is made, the stories they tell, the many hands that have held it for portrait sessions and the many voices that bring it to life.