Heritage NL receives Community Builder Award from the NL Association of Professional Planners

Lara Maynard, Heritage NL Heritage Skills Training Coordinator; Andrea O'Brien, Heritage NL Municipal Outreach Officer; Julia Schwarz, NLAPP President.

In celebration of World Town Planning Day 2022, Heritage NL has been awarded the 2022 NLAPP Community Builder Award for making heritage relevant to the present day. The award is presented by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Professional Planners, the provincial membership body for professional planners.

Heritage NL has been running a long-standing heritage grant program, and an annual heritage poster contest in schools. It has expanded its community outreach for public workshops and events. The NLAPP Nominating Committee’s recommendation reads:

“Heritage NL is making heritage relevant to the present day in terms of housing, economic activity, community involvement, cultural awareness, historical memory, and place-making.  Along with a long-standing heritage grant program and annual heritage poster contest in schools, Heritage NL has been expanding its community outreach for public workshops and events – everything from documenting and cleaning headstones in graveyards to holding community story-telling days and building wooden wriggle fences.  Heritage NL has published a booklet of historic paint colours, mapped community assets in workshops with residents of many NL communities, and helped plan for adapting and reusing old buildings to new uses.  This work is the very definition of community building, with a planning lens to shape it.”

Heritage NL was established in 1984 to stimulate an understanding of and an appreciation for the historic places and living heritage of the province, through projects that support local economic development and tourism. The foundation also has an educational role and coordinates events, publications and other projects designed to promote the value of Newfoundland and Labrador heritage.