The Cochrane Community Awards (CCA) are now accepting nominations for the 2016 awards event happening Sunday, May 29.
In addition to the 12 previous categories, the CCA committee has announced a new category accepting nominations. This year, Cochrane citizens are asked to nominate people for the Equity and Inclusion Champion award.
“This year the Equity and Inclusion Committee with the town came forward and said they’ve really been excited about what’s been happening with their committee and they said it was something they’d like to see celebrated at the Cochrane Community Awards,” said Valerie McCracken, chair of the CCA.
“After we heard their presentation, we felt that this was something that aligns very well with our mandate to celebrate what’s great about Cochrane, the people and groups and everything that contributes to making Cochrane a great place to live,” McCracken explained.
She mentioned the idea behind the category is to be inclusive and to “embrace the diversity we are starting to see in our community.”
“We really felt that there are a lot of great things happening in Cochrane – whether it’s around youth or other marginalized groups, or new immigrant families, or accessibility issues for people with handicaps or seniors.”
Nominees for this category can be one person, a group, an organization, or a business.
“A really basic example would be perhaps a business which put in a ramp or changed its store so that people in wheelchairs could have better access to the facility,” McCracken said.
Nominations can be done online at ccawards.ca
They can also be downloaded off of the website and turned into the Town of Cochrane’s Family and Community Support Services at 209 2 Ave. West. The Town of Cochrane’s award, Mayor and Council’s Order of Cochrane, has a separate nomination form.
There is no limit to the number of nominations that can be made. All nominations must be submitted by Friday, April 8.
The awards ceremony will take place at the Cochrane RancheHouse from 2 to 4 p.m. May 29.
“There are lots of other more subtle ways that people go out of their way to be inclusive,” McCracken surmised.
“We really hope that people will look around the community and help those people that we know are out there and often don’t get the recognition that they so rightly deserve.”
