Laurier Hub for Community Solutions hosted its second annual Summit for Creative Community Solutions, “Bridging the Gap: Connections, Accessibility and Sustainability for Communities,” on Thursday, May 8, 2025.
The seven-hour long summit, which was created as a way to spark creativity and inspire useful change throughout the community, was hosted in partnership with the City of Brantford, and supported by Enterprise Brant, Laurier’s Sustainability Office, Laurier’s Office of Research Services, the Wilfrid Laurier University Alumni Association, Laurier Brantford Grants and the Chamber of Commerce Brantford-Brant.
Earlier this year, both Laurier students and community members were invited to submit a variety of ideas and projects revolving around the event’s three themes of connection, accessibility and sustainability.
Around 55 people, made up of Laurier students and faculty, community leaders, artists, and changemakers, were selected to share their insights through multiple panel discussions, workshops and performances.
“It’s truly energizing to see this room filled with people who care deeply about making our communities more effective, accessible and sustainable,” said Christina Han, Director of the Laurier Hub for Community Solutions. “Thank you for showing up, for speaking out, and for everything that you do every day to make a difference. We are here today because we care; we care about each other, about our communities, about the city, about this country and the world. Many of us work very hard, maybe a little too much sometimes, but they’re also those who stand up and lead with wisdom, humility and relentless passion.”
Following the opening address, Lucy Marco, Executive Director of the Grand River Council on Aging and the event’s first keynote speaker, delivered her presentation, “Creating a Community for a Lifetime.”
Later in the day, guests had the opportunity to listen to two other keynote speakers including: Rita-Marie Hadley, Executive Director of Lansdowne Children’s Centre, for her talk, “Leveraging Accessibility to Build Connections,” and Alexis Buettgen, assistant professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, with her talk, “Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Equity-based Co-creation.”
In between the presentations, guests could choose to attend 12 different panel discussions and workshops. The various topics included things such as: “Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Turning Challenges into Opportunities,” “Building Inclusive Communities: Housing, Culture, and Advocacy for a Better Tomorrow,” “Bridging Gaps, Building Belonging: Identity, Mental Health, and Education,” “Respect, Resilience and Gratitude – Where Art, Science, Local and Indigenous Knowledge Intersect,” and more.
There were also several activities taking place both before, during and after the event; attendees got to take a campus tour with the Laurier Sustainability Office, check out a BioAdaptive Interface Lab Showrun and Info Session, or enjoy a musical performance from Noah Abrahams and a Central and South Asian Dance performance by Paromita Kar, Sumedha Mongia, and Pooja Sathe-Kulkarni.
Han later said that she was extremely happy with how the second annual event turned out, and that she was pleased to see that the summit was doing exactly what it was intended to do.
“I think there are a lot of people who are doing such great work in our community, but the thing is… we’re not talking to one another. The whole point of doing this event was to help create connections so that these people can find out about each other and the work that they’re doing, and then after the summit, go ahead and start working together, and that’s exactly what happened,” she said. “People from different organizations were getting together and saying things like ‘oh my gosh, I never knew you existed, how can we partner up?’ So, when you give people the chance to talk about these pressing community issues, and you bring together insights from various sectors and different lived experiences, I think it just opens up so many doors to create change.”
Han continued to say that it was nice to see how much the event had grown from last year’s inaugural summit, and that she’s looking forward to seeing how it will evolve.
“We had so many awesome submissions that we had to actually say no to a few because it was just a one day event, but that buy-in from the community this year was just incredible. Last year we had to really sell it because it was obviously the first year, but this time they just kept coming in, and so I feel really positive that it will continue to grow and evolve,” she said. “Who knows, maybe we’ll eventually have to turn it into a two-day event because, there were just so many awesome panels, and I kept hearing things like, ‘oh my gosh, I want to go to all of them but they’re happening at the same time, how am I going to choose?’”
For those who missed the event, Han said she’s planning to compile the presenters’ insights into a report so that it can be shared at a later date.
“Just so that way, those insights can live on to inspire people, and so people can learn from all the great ideas and solutions that we shared at our event,” Han concluded.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
