The Gravelbourg Cares Shuttle Service (GCSS), an all-volunteer community non-profit that transports people to their medical appointments, has won the Grand Prize of $20,000 from Winfield United’s Raise the Barn contest.
“We’re over the moon, for sure. We’re just ecstatic,” said Lynn Holmes, GCSS director, about the reaction from herself and her fellow volunteers. “And it’s not just us … It just brought everybody together. We serve about 14 different small communities in this area, and it was neighbour helping neighbour, it really was like raising the barn.”
The first round of Raise the Barn awarded $8,000 each to organizations in three provinces: the Community Garden and Greenhouse project in Foremost, Alberta; the Classroom and Meeting Space for Indigenous Teachings project in Miami, Manitoba; and the Gravelbourg Cares Shuttle Service in Gravelbourg and surrounding communities in Saskatchewan.
Winning the final round as of Dec. 13 means the GCSS has won a total of $28,000.
“This will really help Gravelbourg Cares,” Holmes said. “Our van is getting a bit older, so the intent is to look for a replacement vehicle. We go down the road quite often and it takes its toll! So, that’s where that money will go.”
Holmes said the community support to help them win the contest was overwhelming. From civics projects in local schools that picked up on the shuttle project through contest awareness, to calls from the mayors of communities such as Assiniboia and Ponteix, to strangers calling in to express their support, it’s been a couple of months of solid validation for the volunteers that keep the service rolling.
“Our volunteers are just amazing, because they just really love what they’re doing, you know? The dispatchers, the drivers, the directors,” Holmes expressed, “the passengers move from just being passengers to being friends, because it’s a rural community.
“I guess I want to say that this is a Saskatchewan win. It’s not just a Gravelbourg win, it’s a Saskatchewan win.”
