Way to Grow: Perth Wins National Communities in Bloom Award
October 16, 2015
Joining in the celebration is the Algonquin College, Perth Campus, which was proudly included as one of the stops on the judges’ tour of the Town.
“Perth won the Prettiest Town in Ontario award from TV Ontario, they won the Prince of Wales Prize for Municipal Heritage Leadership from the National Trust for Canada, and now Perth has demonstrated once again what a beautiful, engaged community it is through Communities in Bloom,” said Chris Hahn, Dean of the Perth campus. “It’s a great place to be, a great place to work and a great place to train.”
“The Perth campus was absolutely a key component of the Communities in Bloom judges’ tour,” explained Shellee Fournier, formerly the Director of Community Services at the Town of Perth and now the Chief Administrative Officer for the Corporation of the Town of Gananoque. “The Town of Perth wanted to showcase the numerous accomplishments that the College contributes to the Town.”
Communities in the national competition are graded in six categories: Heritage, Environmental Action, Urban Forestry, Landscape, Floral and Tidiness. Fournier noted that the Perth campus earned high marks in the Environmental Action and Heritage categories in particular. Some of the factors that the judges considered were the building’s green design, which received gold Leadership in Energy and Environment Design certification; the campus library’s collection of archival materials, which are widely accessed for genealogical research; and the role the faculty plays in helping the Town preserve its built heritage.
The judges also took community partnerships into consideration. Here, again, the Perth campus made a positive impression, demonstrating the strong connections that have been built between the College and the Town. Students from the campus’s Specialty Trades programs regularly lend their skills to local conservation and preservation projects by working at historic and cultural sites, while students in the Business and Community & Health Studies programs carry out volunteer and fundraising initiatives throughout the year.
“At the Perth campus, we have an elite building, we have a close relationship with the Town and we have programs that take the economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability to heart in all of their interactions with the community,” noted Hahn. “This award from Communities in Bloom is a good marker for prospective students to know that they will be attending a campus that is accomplished in the areas of environmental action, heritage conservation and preservation, and community partnerships.”