May Challenge - Hosted by Laurie Clout

May 31, 2025

CROSS POSTED FROM PRETTY FINGERS BY ROBIN STAMPING PLATES FACEBOOK GROUP. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19LWeR1y18/?

The May challenge is a little different, and personal, and I hope you like it and can relate in some way.

I live in Ontario, Canada in what was a huge manufacturing town, I got hired at GM in 1984, at the time there were 9000+ employees in our city. We had 2 plants, but plant 1 where I started was 2 buildings, one took up an entire large city block on the east side of a main Street in town and one on the west. It's about a 15-20 min walk from my house. Plant 1 closed its doors in 2010, we currently have about 1400 employees at Plant 2. It was always said that for every GM job, there were 100 jobs supported in the community, so imagine the loss!

My Dad also worked there, he was the Chairman of our union, the President briefly and retired as our National union rep. He spent a great deal of his life/time believing in and fighting for workers. The job, the union and all the causes we supported were a huge part of my life. I'm so glad he didn't get to see the loss of something he fought so hard for.

So having to drive by this empty demolished eye sore all the time, a reminder of what our city lost, with ground contaminated and buyers constantly falling through, it has been extremely depressing and difficult.

Then last summer a local group started this renewal project, suddenly I looked forward to driving by and seeing the progress and guessing what would be added next. It created lots of conversation in my family and I'm sure others. Just recently they added wooden bird houses all around the area.

It makes me happy!

I love the words, the indigenous drawings, the whole thing is just so positive! I want to see people inspired by this wonderful beautification project that took a dreaded scene to a joyous one. So I hope you can be inspired by these drawings and the story of renewal. I'm really looking forward to your take on them. And if you have a place in your neighborhood that makes you happy, be inspired by that and please share with us! Let's see those Manis!