Brandon Bear Clan hits 400 downtown patrols

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This article was published 09/01/2021 (2105 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One step at a time, Brandon Bear Clan Patrol has completed 400 patrols of downtown Brandon, helping those in need and building relationships in the community.

It’s an exciting feeling and a significant milestone, Brandon Bear Clan Women’s Council president Deidre Gregory said on Friday, the day of the 400th patrol.

“We were doing a little countdown, but all of a sudden 400 is here, it’s amazing,” she said.

Bear Clan Patrol started in the city in spring 2017 and has been doing patrols twice a week ever since. Volunteers walk the streets of downtown Brandon wearing fluorescent vests, handing out supplies and checking on the city’s vulnerable population.

The women-led group originally started as a way to help the community and the mandate hasn’t changed since, said Gregory.

“I felt like we were cubs when we started, we were just learning, and today … I feel like we’re able to do more because of experience, we’re able to do more because of how many volunteers we have. We learn to utilize what we have,” she said.

The group follows Indigenous teachings and is modelled after the Bear Clan Patrol in Winnipeg.

Volunteers have built relationships in the community over the last nearly four years, she said, and people know to look for walkers either for help, or just for a human connection.

After so many walks, patrollers know many people living downtown and they, in turn, know them. However, the pandemic has made it more difficult to maintain that same connection with people who are already some of the most isolated in the city.

“With COVID and all the restrictions we’ve been very limited in providing that contact, that hug or handshake. That’s been not available, so I feel like the people we serve are already isolated,” she said.

“Now we have COVID added on top of it, so it’s tough on them, but it’s also tough on the patrollers because those are our people, we’ve built relationships.”

On Friday evening the group set out from the Brandon Friendship Centre building on Lorne Avenue, walking down Sixth Avenue and Rosser Avenue. Throughout the whole walk people approached appeared glad to see them, asking for warm clothes or one of the pizzas patrollers brought to give out to people.

Members also look for used needles, using flashlights and pickup claws to search the garbage cans dotting Rosser Avenue or in snowbanks next to buildings.

Brandon Bear Clan Patrol Women’s Council secretary Lisa Ramsay gave warm sweatpants to a man sitting in an Eighth Street bus stop and patrollers gave a stack of pizzas to a man who flagged them down on Ninth Street.

Ramsay, who said she has been on approximately 350 patrols, said she is extremely proud of the group’s work since its inception in the Wheat City and it has been a “massive effort” to get where they are now.

“We’ve been able to gather some amazing volunteers, people that have very generous hearts and a lot of compassion and a lot of nonjudgemental approach to our fellow citizens,” she said.

“It’s become an important part of my life, I don’t miss many patrols. I love this group of people and I love the people that we serve, so I try to be here as much as I can.”

Brandon Bear Clan members learn more with each walk through downtown, she said. The past year has been hard on people because of COVID-19 and meth has had an impact on many who patrollers meet.

The group currently uses space at the Brandon Friendship Centre for its activities, but Gregory said she would like to see the organization with its own building by the time they complete the next 400 patrols.

“Brandon Friendship Centre has been very good to us, they’ve housed us since the beginning, but we are taking up space there where they could have programming … a lot of the stuff we do is all volunteer, so we would like to have our own space where we could have regular volunteers,” she said

Code Red restrictions mean it was only members of the women’s council patrolling on Friday evening. Brandon Bear Clan Patrol is always looking for new volunteers, but Gregory said to check the organization’s Facebook page to get updates on when volunteers can go on patrols again.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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