Therapeutic Recreation Month

This year, Hon. Audrey Gordon, Minister of Health, officially proclaimed February as Therapeutic Recreation Month in Manitoba. Participating in leisure activities offers many health benefits, and Deer Lodge Centre‘s Therapeutic Recreation Facilitators work exceptionally hard! They provide meaningful activities that help meet the social, emotional, physical and cognitive needs of patients and residents. This is done through large-group programming and one-to-one connection.

Recently, Christopher Bissett from the Recreation Services Team at Deer Lodge Centre shared a story with us about one of our residents. It seemed incredibly fitting to bid farewell to Therapeutic Recreation Month with a great story from the team behind all of the fun.

Keep reading to learn how a simple art project turned into a journey and a masterpiece that celebrates Metis heritage.

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“Brent Munro is a Metis resident from L5W. We did an arts and craft program together where we made flowers from wood.

Brent had the idea to take the flower form from the previous art project, upsize it, and make a “Spirit Board” to celebrate his Metis heritage.

I cut the necessary pieces at home, brought them in and assembled them with Brent.

Once the glue was dry, Brent custom-mixed his own desired colour blue for the background.

He had coloured the pictures of the princess, chief, and the Medicine Man (in the center) on his own with pencil crayons. The wolf, bear, turtle, and eagle were images he had provided to him by Lisa, a member of the Deer Lodge Centre staff.

Once the blue paint was completely cured, he and I used Modge Podge to adhere the pictures onto the board. Brent carefully chose the layout and positioning.

After the Mod Podge was dry, we started laying down coats of Varathane to protect the pictures and the paint, sanding between coats to make the finished product as smooth as possible.

The last item required to finish Brent’s’ Masterpiece is a rope so that he can hang it on the wall in his room.”