Residents to get updated Age Friendly Rosetown directory

EAGLE STAFF

Residents should soon be able to obtain an updated booklet listing local services.

People with Age Friendly Rosetown have revised the community directory they first produced in 2024 with help from a grant from the provincial Health Department. It’s to be available at the town office and elsewhere in the new year, an Age Friendly statement said.

The new version has “more community-themed pictures and a map of Rosetown with an index of specific local service providers,” said the statement from Age Friendly’s Carmen Ledding.

The directory is different from one produced by the Rosetown and District Chamber of Commerce because “it provides information about social groups and events in town, as well as contact numbers for necessary health and transportation services for community members who may need additional support,” Ledding said in the statement.

The group’s volunteers surveyed residents in 2023 to learn what they thought would be “the most important local contact information” that would be “essential” for new and long-time residents, the statement said.

“It is a great resource for people who would like to know who to call when you need assistance from someone you can trust, which is not always readily available through a Google search,” it noted.

“We hand out the Age Friendly Community Directory to new residents,” a town office staff member said in the statement. “We have had very positive feedback from these individuals. They like that all the important numbers are done up in one book and the large print makes it very easy to read.”

One local senior who considered moving to Saskatoon decided to stay, indicating that the directory “provided information on local groups and resources to assist in their everyday needs,” the statement said.

Age Friendly Rosetown hired Vern Dale to contact local organizations listed in the 2024 directory to get their latest information “and to improve the visual layout of the directory,” it said.

Listings range from community and local and rural health services, including support groups, to handyman services and contact numbers for affordable housing. The group also sought listings from neighbouring communities, such as Fiske, it said.

The organization received one of 10 “facilitating independence grants” from the SK Seniors Mechanism during the year to update and print 300 new copies in colour. The money came from a Health Department allotment of $228,000, according to the Seniors Mechanism website.

Age Friendly Rosetown used an earlier grant from the program to create and print the first directory “to provide local information, promote accessibility and inclusion to all community members,” the statement said.

“We like to think of the directory as a resource that is like an ‘information desk’ for Rosetown and surrounding area,” it added.