Page 21 - GBC Eng winter 2021

nity in Nova Scotia by population and has the highest concentra- tion of African Canadians of any community in Canada, and yet this was not representative of our membership at that time.
This was something that our owner and the team at Grand- view had to change. We had to be a part of our surrounding commu- nity and immerse ourselves in the surrounding schools and commu- nity centers. We had to get our motto out - which at Eaglequest has always been, “Your Home For Golf” but how could it be with no
one from the community playing here? How could we get the message out that “Golf is a Game that should be enjoyed by all, no matter of race or background”?
We made some mistakes along the way and found out the hard way that we could not do it alone. In 2008, we started a junior devel- opment program by reaching out to the East Preston community center and the kids in our local area. Grandview continued this program until 2011, when it unfor- tunately fizzled out because we didn’t have the full support of the
community. We realized that we had to first grow our membership amongst the adults in the commu- nity; we needed that endorse- ment. We needed the help of other organizations as we couldn’t do it on our own, we needed mentors from the area.
First, we had to hire people from the community. We also had to stay involved with the Rec Center and by doing so, we grew the membership to over 40 adults from the community. Now we were involved in the community and word quickly spread. Today,
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