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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Kids offered an alternative to drugs

Police collect skates for First Nations

By: Gabrielle Giroday

Posted: 01/12/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA From left, Chief Martin Owens, Supt. Scott Kolody, Joe Anderson from Interlake Reserves Tribal Council Inc., Grand Chief Ron Evans and RCMP Const. Jeff Ryan with some of the approximately 300 pairs of skates and hockey equipment collected in the skate drive.

SKATES or sniff? Chief Martin Owens was blunt Tuesday afternoon about some of the options youths in Little Grand Rapids might partake in.

The community about 270 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg has an on-reserve population of 1,200 and more than its fair share of problems.

Owens said the community grapples with the "major problem" of gas sniffing, and materials that were supposed to go to a new arena are sitting unused because there's no money for labour to build it.

"A lot of people are on social (assistance) and they don't have enough money to buy hockey equipment, skates for their kids," said Owens, who was at an RCMP press conference in Selkirk highlighting a donation of nearly 500 pairs of skates to the community. Owens estimated about half of the 1,200 people are children and there's a 50 per cent employment rate.

"A lot of them get into trouble because they don't have much to do. And this will help a lot of the kids, keep them busy during the winter," he said.

RCMP officers from detachments across D Division's East District helped collect the used skates, which will be flown into the community.

"There's not a lot of income... (there's) no way the kids can pay for that," said Const. Jeff Ryan, one of seven RCMP officers who are stationed at a detachment in the community.

He said the idea for the drive came after he was approached by a Child and Family Services worker about how to get skates for boys and girls aged 5 to 15.

The skates will also go to the community of Pauingassi, a nearby community where officers from the detachment also work. Both communities have lakes where youths can skate.

Tuesday afternoon, piles of the donations sat behind Ryan on the second floor of the Selkirk RCMP detachment, including a weathered pair of goalie pads and a pair of girl's skates with painted flowers on the side.

Ryan said he had hoped for about 60 pairs of skates and was bowled over when more showed up. "It just started to mushroom," said Ryan. RCMP Supt. Scott Kolody was frank about what officers who work in isolated communities face. Part of the skate drive means he promised to work night shifts in some of the detachments.

"They don't have a lot of the services and amenities in a lot of those communities," he said, saying officers are "always on call (and) always ready to respond."

"For the most part, we're out there, we're policing on our own."

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 12, 2011 A2

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