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Curbside recycling pickup in Benito has been discontinued since the end of August.

According to the Municipality of Swan Valley West, Benito residents must now deposit their recyclables into the bins on the east side of the Benito Maintenance Shop at 87 Railway Ave.

Grant Schneider, chair of the Local Urban District (LUD) Committee for Benito, says that it had to be discontinued because they didn't have the financial means to sustain it and that they weren't able to properly budget for recycling pickup because they were missing critical information, including what the rates would be from OSS, the waste management company that serves the area.

"We never got any hardcore evidence of what we were going to get [back from the government] for our MSN tipping fees... They basically are going to give us $5,000 out of whatever grants we're going to get from that, so we can't really sustain [a recycling program] when last year, our cost was $38,000 to have recycling pickup in Benito," he adds.

According to Schneider, they also explored the idea of transitioning to picking up recycling once a month, instead of twice a month.

"We were struggling to understand what it was going to cost. We [didn't] know what the additional fuel surcharges were going to be. Nobody gave us information in regards to that, so that we can make a proper decision on how to go about it...Even at... $40,000 and there [are 200] households in Benito... each person would have to pay an additional $200 for curbside pickup," he adds.

Schneider went on to say that it would be unreasonable to go ahead with that, since most Benito residents are seniors living on a fixed income.

He also points out that although residents are able to bring their recyclables to the maintenance shop themselves, many seniors living in the area would struggle to get them there.

Furthermore, Grant Schneider believes that the amalgamation of the former Village of Benito into the Municipality of Swan Valley West has made it more difficult to get funding.

"It makes it tough on these little communities to run the programs... If you don't get the proper grants, like we did when we used to be the Village, of course, it makes it harder to facilitate these programs [and] make them run," he adds.

Schneider says that curbside recycling pickup could return to Benito in the future, but there are no concrete plans for that at this time.

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The Winnipegosis Fire Department is raising money to bring a fuel cache to the area for STARS Air Ambulance. Currently, when STARS responds to a call in the area, they drop off the trauma team and then have to leave and refuel in Dauphin or Gypsumville.

The extra stop can add significant time, in a situation that's life or death, and the department wants to make calls to the area more efficient. Deputy Chief Brent Benson says with the right equipment, they'd arrive on the scene before stars, and immediately start helping with the process.

"We would meet them at the scene where they're going to be helping the patient. The flight from Winnipeg is just a little bit longer than it would take for us to get to the scene. That would allow us to have a landing zone ready for them, or assist the local fire department in having a landing zone ready for them, as well as having the fuel there so they could land, the trauma team would go help the ambulance crew get the patient ready for transport, and we would start refueling with the pilot."

Having the fuel on the scene means that once the trauma team has the patient ready for transport, they'd be able to immediately leave the scene, rather than have to wait for the helicopter to return from refueling.

"It really improves how far they can go, because currently, we're on the outer range of where they can operate from. To go much further north than Winnipegosis, it's kind of hard for them to even get there in the first place, and then have enough fuel to even get to a fueling station. So for us to be able to refuel them on-site would save an immense amount of time for them, and potentially save the lives of the patients they're helping."

Benson says the project will cost around $15,000, and while they have some donations of equipment already, they're raising money to purchase a trailer. Sponsor logos will be placed on the trailer, which will also be used at public education events.

"It's only a few incidents a year right now where they've been called out, but these are in remote areas, and even though we have fabulous ambulance personnel, with incidents to sever they basically have to go straight to Winnipeg anyways, so this would save three to four hours of travel time for the most severe trauma's that occur in these rural areas, and we think it'll save lives."

People interested in donating, or looking for more information about the project can contact the Winnipegosis Municipal Office at (204) 656-4791.

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Today marks the start of Tim Hortons' Smile Cookie Week fundraising campaign.

The Dauphin Tim Hortons will be participating again this year, with all the proceeds raised from selling Smile Cookies this week going to support Maamawi Park and the 4 Season Toboggan Run.

This year, Tim Hortons teamed up with six local businesses, which have each been assigned a day where they'll be matching and donating funds from each Smile Cookie sold at the Dauphin Tims; today's Smile Cookie sales will be matched by the Dauphin Home Hardware.

Last year's Smile Cookie Week was able to raise $27,174 for the Dauphin Friendship Centre and the Parkland Humane Society, which allowed the Dauphin Tim Hortons to be ranked as one of the top 10 locations in Canada.

Anyone interested in pre-ordering Smile Cookies can do so by calling 204-638-3299.

More information on Smile Cookie Week can be found on the Tim Hortons website.

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The Terry Fox Run is tomorrow this year, and there's an event going on in Dauphin open to anyone that wants to participate. Registration for the run is at 10:30 tomorrow at Vermillion Park, and the run gets underway at 11 a.m.

"You can go to the website, TerryFox.org, or just come to Vermillion Park and we'll have registration forms."

Local Organizer Stephen Roznowsky says people are able to register online beforehand, and donations can also be made at the Dauphin Terry Fox Run webpage here.

"It's a very good organization to belong to, it's done a lot for cancer research since 1980 when Terry Fox started, and I'm proud to be a part of it."

There's also a Terry Fox Run being held in Winnipegosis from noon to 2 p.m. starting at the Boulevard, and you can register here. You can find out more about why the Terry Fox Run is held, and the history of the Marathon of Hope on the organization's website here.

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Dauphin's Fire Chief Cam Abrey has a new designation after completing the Executive Chief Fire Officer program through the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. Abrey says he's been working on the program for a while, and it's nice to have finally completed it.

"I started the program actually four years ago, upon return from a Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Fire Rescue Canada conference in Vancouver. I had come back and signed up for it and was ready to get going, and they assigned an assessor to me from the council. I started submitting my assignments but the assessor retired without me knowing about it, and I just kind of put everything on pause."

Abrey says once the pandemic hit, there were other items that came to the forefront rather than the assignments.

"After a little bit of a delay and a pause, and a lot of hard work, I finally got it done and submitted in time to receive my designation at the conference this past Tuesday evening."

Abrey says a lot of work went into the program, with 30 different assignments, but it allowed him to take a better look at the work he does.

"It helped me discover a lot of the stuff that I've done, but never thought about, because it was just my ordinary everyday duties that I've been doing. When they're asking for examples of how you've dealt with human resources, as a part of my assignment I had to submit various things that we've had to deal with, within the fire service."

Abrey says he had to look at how he dealt with governing the department, how they've found other sources of revenue, prepared budgets, and different fire prevention techniques.

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A project aiming to preserve the history of McCreary is currently underway.

The McCreary Oral History Project is centred around capturing the voices of McCreary residents through a series of recorded interviews.

Pam Little, the director of the project, says that they are starting by interviewing the oldest in the community.

"We've already actually interviewed three 100-year-olds... And then we have some targeted just for where they lived or what they did in McCreary... Sometimes it's younger people we're interviewing because the other people are no longer with us... For example, we interviewed a woman in her seventies, who's relatively young compared to a 100-year-old, about her life living in the railway station in McCreary. Her dad was a station manager, so they lived... where we have our museum, so that was pretty neat to hear," she adds.

Little says that people can get involved by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., by calling her at 204-835-2529 or by messaging McCreary Heritage Advisory Committee on Facebook.

She expects the film to be completed by March 2023, but says that they need more volunteers to accomplish that.

"They can get a hold of those same contact places to volunteer," Little adds.

Pam Little went on to say that they need people who can interview, type up the transcript, be the cameraperson, or scan pictures that can go into the film.

The project is funded by the Government of Canada's New Horizons for Seniors Program.

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The election for Mountain View School Division School Trustee is taking place on October 26th, and as it stands, the division is very short on candidates. Senior Elections Official Kirk Dawson says time is running out for people to sign up to run.

"There's nine positions, nine trustees that they look for, four wards, and there's really just one nomination package that's been completed so far. We have had some packages picked up, but we know we have at least four vacancies, of people not running that were incumbents last time, so there is certainly a need out there."

Nomination packages can only be submitted until 4 p.m. on Tuesday, September 20th, so Dawson says there is some urgency with getting nominations in. Anyone with questions about how to run in the election can reach out to Dawson at (204) 572-0914.

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Summer camp has always been important to the Bankert family, and they're using their platform to give more people the opportunity to experience everything that it has to offer. The family's been creating videos for a while, but Richard Bankert says they wanted to give those videos more purpose.

"We said let's do something with summer camp, we've been involved with summer camp, I started going when I was five, and I've been a director for 12 years, including directing at Dauphin Bible Camp for 10 years, and it's something that's really dear to our hearts, and we feel that every kid who wants to go should get to go, and we want to be a part of that."

The 100K #GetKidstoCamp Challenge is a partnership between the Bankert family and One Hope Canada which owns 40 camps across Canada including Dauphin Bible Camp. The family will be creating videos on their YouTube Chanel, Our Crazy RV, and they'll be showcasing camps from Saskatchewan to Nova Scotia and back.

"It's to get kids to camp how awesome is that?  You can go on ourcrazyrv.com and there's more information on there as well as a donation link. Our goal is to raise over 100,000 dollars to offset the cost of kids going to camp, as well as just to showcase how awesome summer camp is."

The Bankerts will be posting the first video of the series on their YouTube page and website tonight at 6 p.m. and they plan on posting a new video in the series every three days going forward.

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The Manitoba government announced today that they have reached an agreement with Shoppers Drug Mart to provide free menstrual products to schools and other agencies to improve accessibility and reduce period poverty.

The province says that through the agreement with Shoppers Drug Mart, schools, domestic violence shelters, resource centres, and second-stage and specialized programs will receive menstrual products to administer to those most in need.

Families Minister Rochelle Squires, the minister responsible for the status of women, says that the partnership allows them to progress towards destigmatizing the nature of women getting their period by supporting young women and girls when they need it most.

“This significant shift will ensure thousands of students and others most in need will have reliable and consistent access to menstrual products wherever they live in our province,” Squires adds.

According to a news release by the provincial government, as part of this partnership, more than 3.3 million menstrual products will be donated to the initiative each year for three years. The Manitoba government will distribute the products monthly to schools and other identified locations. School divisions and schools will determine where the supplies are most needed.

Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Wayne Ewasko adds that providing free menstrual products to students delivers on the government’s commitment to building a fair and equitable public education system, supporting the Student Engagement and Well-Being pillar of Manitoba’s K to 12 Education Action Plan.

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Kathy Bellemare is looking to remain on Dauphin City Council as she runs in the municipal election set to take place on October 26th.

Bellemare is originally from The Pas and moved to Dauphin thirty-two years ago.

She says that people should vote for her because she brings a lot of experience and has a big curiosity about how things work and how they could be made better.

"I have the time and the energy. I just want to roll up my sleeves and help make Dauphin an even better place to live," she adds.

Even though Kathy Bellemare feels that a lot has been accomplished during the eight years she spent on council, there are still things that she wants to work on.

"One of the things is that I think we need to develop a community safety and wellbeing plan for all our community partners... I think it's important that all the partners sit down and plan together and get to know each other and plan a stronger future forward... Also, economic development, that's an ongoing thing. We always need to figure out how [we can] better position our community, so that we can provide lots of employment for people and offer lots of services for our community, so people want to come here and stay here," she adds.

Bellemare went on to say that she's also interested in developing a climate mitigation and adaptation plan.

"I think we all realize that there's some wonky weather out there and we just need to stand back and take a look and say 'Ok, what could happen? How do we prepare for that? How do we minimize that, so that we're not at the mercy of some of these huge weather events?'," she adds.

Kathy Bellemare says that her main priority is public safety.

"I think that community safety is important right now and I think economic development is important right now. And sometimes that ties together. If people are not employed and they feel [that] their lives are out of control, certainly that could dovetail into the crime rates that we're having and we need to figure out a way of stopping that and improving that for our community," she adds.

Bellemare also says that the reasons for crime are not neccessarily simple and that there is no quick fix.

Anyone interested in running for mayor, council or reeve has until September 20th to register.

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Steiner Plumbing & Heating moved into a new building at the end of August. It's located at 514 Main St. S., right next to their old one.

Carla Wolfenden, who co-owns the business with her husband Chris Wolfenden, says that they decided to move to a new location because they needed more space.

"We have warehouse and storage space now... We can carry more parts both for our guys and for our customers, so it makes it more convenient for everyone. We now have office space for ourselves, which we really never had before. Our admin staff have space to move and it's just not cramped... It's just an overall better place to work for everyone... Most of all, we have a showroom now," she adds.

Wolfenden went on to say that the new showroom gives them the ability to showcase products, many of which people don't expect them to sell, to potential customers.

"Hot tubs [are] our newest one. We just became an Arctic Spa dealer this year and we've actually just placed our first few orders for customers, which is very exciting... We do have three on display.  We have Primo Smoker barbecues, which are gorgeous high-end barbecues... We are a Napoleon dealer as well, so we can get in any barbecue that Napoleon sells," she adds.

According to Wolfenden, they also sell gas fireplaces, electric fireplaces and wood stoves.

She feels that it's a big relief to finally move in after buying the property around a year ago.

"It's a luxury for us to have all this space... I'm sure everyone... at our shop feels the same way. You're not on top of each other. You're able to find things easier. It's more organized because we do also have an inventory person now," Wolfenden adds.

Carla Wolfenden went on to say that they have amazing customers and that thanks to them, they didn't have to lay anyone off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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