$500,000 grant from McConnell Family Foundation put to good use at Georgian in Orillia

Orillia Packet & Times -

Chad Lubelsky is excited by what he sees.

Lubelsky, who serves as associate program director of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, visited Georgian College's Orillia campus Tuesday to see first-hand the work of the school's Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.

Late last year, the Montreal-based foundation provided the innovative college initiative with a welcome boost by way of a $500,000 grant through its RECODE program.

"Our mission is to build a more resilient Canada," said Lubelsky, who pointed out social entrepreneurship integrates fiscal and environmental concerns under one umbrella.

"For a growing number of young people, social enterprise offers opportunities to work on meeting society's challenges."

Lubelsky said it's fitting a man whose foundation will help Georgian's Orillia campus grew up nearby.

"J.W. was from just up the road," said Lubelsky.

"J.W. was from Gravenhurst and moved to Montreal at the turn of the century. He moved to Montreal to go to McGill."

Georgian College president and CEO MaryLynn West-Moynes said the centre has generated impressive results since its inception in 2012.

"This grant will truly make a difference and (create) a lasting change in our community," she said, noting the centre has been involved with 69 projects involving 140 students from four programs and "positively impacted" 1,900 community members. "Our commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation drives us. We're celebrating an incredible milestone for this institution."

West-Moynes said the centre provides another huge opportunity for students who will eventually enter the workforce.

"Education is the great equalizer in life," she said. "Education is more than just transporting knowledge. It's the catalyst for change."

College staff said the grant aids the centre's ongoing development while also expanding its reach. The college is using the funds to expand student experiential learning opportunities along with its community-projects initiative across its network of seven campuses.

, said the school is working with faculty to design and implement targeted professional development opportunities while also building capacity to incubate and grow new social enterprises at Georgian campuses and in the communities they serve.

Unlike business entrepreneurship that tries to generate revenue, social entrepreneurship focuses on developing new ideas, approaches and ways of delivering services to the community.

The centre also operates with a goal of providing non profit organizations with creative strategies to address complex issues, generating both social and economic returns.

So far, students participating in centre's programs have worked with such community partners as Camp Couchiching, the Sharing Place Food Bank and the AIDS Committee of Simcoe County on business plans, fundraisers, marketing initiatives, partnership building and a variety of other projects.

The funding allows the centre to become the social entrepreneurial learning hub in Simcoe County and allow the college to develop additional related programming.

"With the funding, we're looking at furthering initiatives we have been working on," she said. "We're developing a social entrepreneurship graduate certificate and also a two-year program called community development and innovation and a social entrepreneurship elective."

Eryn Stanley, who has in Georgian's Social Services Worker program, said she and two fellow students have enjoyed working with the centre and Orillia's Dress for Success affiliate, an organization that provide professional attire a network of support and career development tools to help disadvantaged women thrive in work and life.

She added: "This experience has truly opened up so many doors for our team."

Fellow student Natasha Hedden said she has gained valuable leadership skills since starting the Dress for Success project that will help her down the road.

"I enjoy being surrounded by individuals who are striving to make a difference in the community and who will encourage me to help out on many different levels," she said.

Since 2012, the centre has partnered with 750 organizations, having more than 1,200 students annually in the community through work related placements.

The grant announcement follows a RECODE proposal submitted last June to the private philanthropic organization charged with supporting Canadians in building a more innovative, inclusive, sustainable and resilient society.

"RECODE is a call to social innovation -- to redesign public institutions from the inside out, to disrupt business as usual, to found and grow new social enterprises, to create partnerships across institutional and sectoral boundaries -- in short, to 'recode' our culture's operating systems in order to achieve a more just, sustainable and beautiful world," according to the foundation's website.

Georgian was one of 15 post-secondary institutions in Canada to receive a matching grant.