Lieutenant Governor’s Community Spirit Award: Town of Berwick and Surrounding Areas

Date of Celebration: Sunday, September 4, 2011 Berwick’s Annual Gala Days Festival

‘Shine’ schedule: Official Presentation at 8:30 p.m. prior to Fireworks at Grand View Manor on the lawn, 110 Commercial Street (Free Admission)

‘Rain’ schedule: Official presentation at 5 p.m. during the Bluegrass Concert at Mutual Kings Century Centre, 250 Veterans Drive (Concert Admission $6)

All are welcome!

You might know Berwick as the Apple Capital of Nova Scotia. Or as the community near those endangered and exotic cats and primates at the Oaklawn Farm Zoo. You might even know that Berwick’s surrounding communities include geographic hamlets with whimsical names like Waterville, Somerset and Windermere.

What you might not know is how this community’s passionate persistence to defy the urban-pulling odds has shaped its character as a place that dreams big – and then, builds it. This strength is one among many that enabled Berwick and its surrounding communities to become the fourth and final recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Community Spirit Award for 2011.

Berwick’s ability to build - and build big – can be seen in its hospital that is now ‘owned’ and run by a volunteer board of directors, its new state-of-the-art (and debt-free) Kings Mutual Century Centre that is home to a new arena and Lions Hall, and future home to a new learning centre, fitness centre, curling rink, and outdoor pool, and its new Berwick and District Volunteer Fire Hall, to name a few of the area’s more recent endeavors.

“Our leadership did not come in the form of one heroic champion, but rather through a network of distributed leadership. The community, in essence, led itself and everyone involved was a champion,” says their award nomination about one of the many large projects they have successfully undertaken to provide their community with facilities for young and old, for health and wellness, and for support and celebration of families.

The heart of the Lieutenant Governor’s Community Spirit Award is recognizing the work of the collective – and powerful – whole. Berwick and its cousin communities demonstrated this far beyond bushels.

 Learn more about the Lieutenant Governmor's Community Spirit Awards.