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Community Programs
Food Security Program
The Denesoline Food Security Program provides 40-50 kg hampers to each household in Lutsel K'e four times a year. As Lutsel K'e is a remote location, groceries are overpriced and limited, particularly during the holidays. Taking that into consideration, the food hampers are distributed during Easter, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
The individual food items are hand-selected to suit the given time of year, as well as the community’s culture. For example, the hampers have often included ingredients to make bannock; traditional fried bread.
The end goal of providing food hampers is to lessen the financial burden while encouraging each community member to celebrate with a homemade meal amongst loved ones.
Food Security Program
The Denesoline Food Security Program provides 40-50 kg hampers to each household in Lutsel K'e four times a year. As Lutsel K'e is a remote location, groceries are overpriced and limited, particularly during the holidays. Taking that into consideration, the food hampers are distributed during Easter, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
The individual food items are hand-selected to suit the given time of year, as well as the community’s culture. For example, the hampers have often included ingredients to make bannock; traditional fried bread.
The end goal of providing food hampers is to lessen the financial burden while encouraging each community member to celebrate with a homemade meal amongst loved ones.
East Arm Cafe
The East Arm Cafe opened in December 2015 and is another quality of life enhancement project that is continuing to successfully operate. For the first time, residents are provided with a place to eat outside of their homes. The Cafe serves a variety of breakfast and lunch items, as well as brewed coffees, and snacks.
Due to the success of the Cafe, an advanced professional grade food trailer was purchased in the fall of 2016 and has been active since the summer of 2017.
The food trailer acts as a branch of the East Arm Cafe, and serves a more diverse menu, with traditional food items such as fish stew and bannock. With the introduction of the professional grade kitchen and commercial fryers, members can purchase some of their favourite treats that were previously unattainable - including fried chicken and french fries.
The East Arm Cafe currently employs four individuals from Lutsel K'e and allows the staff to develop practical experience through food services, preparation and hospitality.
Community training program
The Denesoline Community Training Program offers programs that aim to host specific training sessions that will further educate community members and in turn, increase their employable skills. The Denesoline Community Training Program imparts skills that can be used in everyday life, and job environments.
The goal of the program is to teach community members applicable knowledge to increase overall quality of life and open up the new career possibilities.
In the past, these programs have included: food safety, financial literacy, and job readiness trainings.
Denesoline Corporation Food Safe/First Host training program: In order to train community members to work in the East Arm Cafe, Denesoline Corporation organized and delivered two highly successful training programs, Food Safe, and First Host, where 13 people successfully completed the training and were awarded certification.
Financial Literacy Workshop: All three diamond mines, GNWT and Aurora College worked cooperatively to sponsor a Financial Literacy Workshop held at the Aurora College building in Lutsel K'e.
Job Readiness Seminar: Denesoline Corporation recently sponsored a job readiness seminar for interested community members. The seminar was focused on helping community members better prepare for job opportunities.
Sport participation initiative
The Denesoline Sport Participation Initiative is a program that provides opportunities for community members to participate in sporting events and activities. Due to the remote location of Lutsel K'e, many sporting events occur outside of the community and result in participants incurring debt to partake. This program aims to supply financial assistance to community members who wish to participate. The program intends to improve community engagement by promoting sport activities and improving quality of life through healthy lifestyles and teamwork.
Some of the events supported include:
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Men's Hockey
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Youth Hockey
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Boys and Girls Volleyball
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Men's Hand-games
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Youth Hand-games
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Youth Basketball
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Youth Soccer
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Shooting Trials
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Installing an asphalt pad in the Lutsel K'e Community Arena
Culture maintenance program
The Denesoline Culture Maintenance Program aims to help preserve and engage community members in the traditions and culture of the Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation (LKDFN) people. Every year, the program donates funds to promote community involvement in traditional cultural activities.
The theory behind the Denesoline Culture Maintenance Program is to increase community members' quality of life by promoting the transfer of traditional knowledge and skills from one generation to another. The transfer of traditional knowledge and skills allows the community to learn from their elders and embrace their unique history.
The goal of the program is to maintain traditions and keep the culture of the LKDFN people alive for generations to come.
Some of the activities supported include:
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Community hide camps
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Community dances
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Spiritual gatherings
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Women's spiritual gatherings
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Youth culture camps
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Funding culturally significant infrastructure
Youth & Education Program
The Denesoline Youth & Education Program provides educational support and scholarships to deserving Lutsel K'e youth. The program aims to provide opportunities for ambitious youth and reward them for exceptional performance.
Due to its isolated location of Lutsel K'e and the lack of funding for education, the programs goal is to provide educational tools as well as funding to the youth.
The Denesoline Youth & Education program understands the importance of learning from multiple avenues and supports a multitude of ways this can be accomplished.
Some of the ways the program has benefited the youth include:
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Youth center improvements
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Graduation scholarships
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Laptop donations
Women's Leadership Program
The Denesoline Women's Leadership Program is a community wide initiative that encourages involvement in leadership roles, promotes feminism, and focuses on gender equality.
Due to the remote location of Lutsel K'e, there is a lack of available programs for women. With this in mind, the goal of Denesoline Women's Leadership Program, is to support and provide financial aid to community members whom wish to seek out and increase their education awareness of women's rights.
The program was established with hopes of increasing community wide awareness of women's rights and also to encourage participation in leadership roles.
An example of a program supported includes funding for women's training.
Traditional Craft Appreciation Program
The Denesoline Traditional Craft Appreciation Program is a program that supports traditional art by purchasing hand-made arts and crafts from the community members of Lutsel K'e.
Due to the distant site, and lack of access to surrounding markets, the Denesoline Craft Appreciation Program allows community members to sell their hand-crafted goods without having to leave the community.
The goal of the program is to promote the continuance of traditional arts and craft practices, provide financial support to the community artists, and alleviate the need for members to fly into Yellowknife or surrounding areas to sell their goods.
Soon, the program aims to build a website that will allow some of the goods to be sold online, through the Corporation. The website will allow the Coporation to continute purchasing items from the community members and will also take care of the logistics that come with selling items online. This process will ensure that the artists are able to continue producing their arts and crafts without the financial burden of having to leave to the community to make sales.
Annual Cash Distribution
The Denesoline Economic Stimulation Program distrubutes cash annually to every household in the community of Lutsel K'e from its own profits. Denesoline is alone among its peers to redistribute wealth into its community in this manner.