Shuswap Community Response Network
Sorrento Centre Photo credit: Jerre Paquette
By Carole Jeffries
When times are hard, it’s both comforting and helpful to know that someone has your back. Family and friends may offer support, but sometimes more is needed. And that’s where the Shuswap Community Response Network (SCRN) can help.
Originally established in partnership with the local food bank, homecare services, and health unit in the fall of 2022, the SCRN now stands more than 90 organizations and individuals strong. That’s impressive growth in two and a half years—especially when you consider that most of the people involved are volunteers.
Sometimes working in concert with the United Way, other non-profits, the CSRD, or government ministries, affiliates of the SCRN lend a helping hand to vulnerable adults.
The founding Sorrento Food Bank, Shuswap Better at Home, and Sorrento and Area Community Health Centre still are centrally engaged—and other organizations and individuals have joined the growing network.
For example, the recently established Seniors Community Connector program now complements the services of Shuswap Better at Home. Both are administered by the Eagle Valley Community Support Society. In the South Shuswap, North Shuswap, and Chase, Mandy Funnell serves as the Community Connector. Mandy’s role is to help connect seniors, their families, and caregivers with appropriate services and supports.
Regular readers of The Scoop may recall previous articles that profiled SCRN health affiliates such as the health centre in Sorrento as well as Copper Island Health and Wellness Centre, South Shuswap Health Services Society, and South Shuswap First Responders. Newcomers moving to the South Shuswap from large centres may be surprised to learn that it’s not the government or Interior Health operating these services. No, it is local non-profit organizations and dedicated volunteers who keep things running.
And what would South Shuswap residents who don’t drive do without the volunteers at South Shuswap Rides? Operated by the South Shuswap Transportation Society, this door-to-door service provides weekday transportation for medical appointments and other essential errands. Dependable volunteer drivers take riders (from South Shuswap communities only) to appointments in Salmon Arm, Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops, and back. There’s no direct charge, but donations are welcomed.
Serving Chase and the South and North Shuswap, the trained and vetted staff and volunteers of Chase and District Police-based Victim Services work in conjunction with the Chase RCMP and Chase Rotary Club to offer practical and emotional support to victims and survivors of crime and trauma.
Also in Chase, the Chase Hamper Society collects donations of food and money, recovers food from stores and farmers, purchases senior meals from local restaurants, and helps deliver food to people in need.
Other SCRN affiliates help in these ways:
EBMae Care offers private, non-medical senior care
Friends of the Library advocates for and supports library branches to ensure that this important resource for information-gathering, literacy work, group discussions, and social interactions remains sustainable.
River of Life Community Church and the Sorrento Drop-In Society each offer a place for people to gather, participate in activities, and enjoy the company of others.
SASCU, the Sorrento Lions Club, the South Shuswap Chamber of Commerce, and individual volunteers serve the community through fundraising and volunteering on a range of projects.
All SCRN affiliates can be reached by visiting their websites or Facebook pages or by calling the Sorrento Retreat and Conference Centre at 250-675-2421. It’s the first point of contact for people seeking information or help. As an active part of the support team, the Centre makes a staff person available as the network’s Coordinator and cheerfully hosts SCRN’s monthly meetings and community events.
In addition, more than a dozen affiliates based in Salmon Arm provide services to the wider Shuswap. Low-income moms, vulnerable families and individuals, people experiencing intimate partner violence or other forms of abuse, new immigrants, people wanting to improve their literacy, LGBT+ people, brain injury patients, or those needing food, clothing, or furniture all can find help from SCRN affiliates.
While the SCRN’s mandate focuses on vulnerable adults, its affiliated organizations and individuals provide programs and services that ultimately benefit everyone. It seems, then, that the network’s affiliates don’t just have the backs of vulnerable adults; they have the backs of the whole community.
