It's now been a year since Jordan Friesen became CMHA's Central Region Executive Director in Portage la Prairie. Friesen shares what it feels like.

"It's been a fast year. It feels like yesterday."

He outlines some of the highlights during his first twelve months.

"First heroes awards; that was a real highlight. And I'm glad to hear that it was well received by staff, by those in attendance, and by the rest of the community. It was the biggest one we had in a long time. We had about 130 attend, which is a large crowd by CMHA standards. And then Mental Health Week in May was another big highlight for me."

Friesen shares what he expected.

"I don't know if I knew what to expect, to be honest with you. When you enter a job like this I think you have to expect that you're going to be doing things you never quite anticipated. And so, that was my expectation, and that has certainly been the case. I've developed skills in everything from finance, to I.T., to human resources. But more than that, I've also developed really meaningful relationships in the community."

One partnership made with the bike shop is still in the development phase, Friesen adds. He notes a lot of interest's been shown toward the new project, and many are asking about it. Friesen explains volunteer projects like this often take longer to get going. For those interested, it's still moving ahead. He notes many donations, funding, as well as tools have been provided. Friesen says they just need space now to open it to the public. Public workshops will be offered in the fall to allow people to develop skills for maintenance and repair. This will help keep interest going until they can actually open up the shop.

Friesen says he has lots of plans in mind for the future. A big one is the expansion of some services they can offer. Near the start, Friesen says, he wanted to see their services appeal to a broader audience in the public. He notes they have services for anybody. He adds their efforts to continue to build capacity in the organization from internal infrastructure to staff training is in their plans, all for the purpose of delivering more and more quality services to our city.