Flourish Foundation
In 2007, Shauna Ockey founded Tanbridge Academy as an answer to her son’s long commute. It was meant to be a one-year solution until he entered the junior high closer to home. Shauna brought in a homeschool teacher to educate a group of eight sixth-grade boys and they got their Phys Ed credits from their busy hockey schedule. The experiment was a huge success. Soon, other families became interested in the program.
“These boys did not want to go to another school after that year. That’s how Tanbridge Academy was founded,” Shauna says.
Instead of sending her son and his friends to junior high as planned, Shauna created a non-profit organization and established Tanbridge Academy for children from kindergarten to grade 9, adding grade 10 next year with additional high school grades to follow. Today, the Academy accommodates over 325 students.
Why Sport and the Flourish Centre are Important:
• One in three Canadian children can’t play organized sports because of the cost
• 70% of kids quit sports by 13 years old
• Girls leave sport at nearly double the rate of boys by age 14
• 94% of female C-suite executives played sports in their youth
When it comes to the well-being of children, Shauna Ockey has a unique perspective. She spent years working as a pediatric nurse in the Alberta Children’s Hospital’s intensive care unit. Then she founded Tanbridge Academy, a not-for-profit independent elementary and junior high school that focuses not only on academic achievement but also athletics, sportsmanship and character building. The goal was to develop the whole child, which Shauna discovered that has become more complicated in recent years, as today’s children are the first generation to grow up in a digital world dominated by social media and screen time. She and her principal at Tanbridge, along with other professionals, have found being so tethered to technology caused anxiety and depression, even in very young children. To combat these challenges, they developed character and leadership programs at Tanbridge, while incorporating Recreation for Life to promote active living early on.
“Our children at Tanbridge Academy are really well supported emotionally, and they’re taught to be leaders.” Shauna says. “I wanted to take that to the broader community.”
The result is her campaign to build The Flourish Centre in Alpine Park SW. This ambitious 400,000 sq-ft recreation centre features two sheets of ice (with the first purpose built adaptive rink in Calgary), a FIFA-sized soccer field house and six gyms designed for inclusive recreation. It also includes a 500-seat performing arts theatre and event centre. Tanbridge Academy and other community organizations will lease space from the Flourish Foundation, ensuring the facility is busy all day while providing programming dollars.
But The Flourish Centre will be more than simply a recreation centre. The magic is in the intentional programming that will go on inside it. Shauna and her team want to shake up how sport and recreation is delivered to youth. Psychologists and coaching specialists will educate parents and coaches on ways to support kids to ensure sports remain fun. Shauna says that coaching styles from a generation ago aren’t as effective today; they’ll offer different approaches to encourage athletes, especially female athletes, to participate in their sport for longer. The research shows that resiliency in kids is built through overcoming challenges. To nurture that resilience, The Flourish Centre will host competitive, organized league play in a variety of sports while also introducing unstructured, less demanding and more affordable opportunities to get kids out playing and connecting together. Accessible design, philanthropic programming and public access will ensure there will be something for everyone once the Flourish Centre is completed.
“Flourish is for human connection across the generations. The Centre will support our youth in giving a sense of belonging, a place to be, foster resiliency, emotional intelligence and support physical and mental development that comes from unstructured,” Shauna says.
The Centre is great for those who are kids at heart, too. Flourish will encourage seniors to participate in intergenerational programs and mentoring, from reading to kids and hosting cooking classes in the commercial kitchen to learning technology from youngsters. It will also hold fitness classes geared to seniors to promote an active lifestyle at any age.
Shauna’s campaign couldn’t come at a better time. The city’s recreation facilities are experiencing growing pains in the face of higher demand, rising costs and aging facilities. Calgary GamePLAN is a vision for the future of public recreation in Calgary, and the Flourish Centre fits nicely into this push to increase recreation services across the city.
“Private donors and philanthropists want to be a part of the solution and address critical need for public recreation and sport infrastructure in Calgary. It’s really a gift to the community that will continue to give for generations,” she says.
That gift comes with a hefty price tag. Shauna and her tireless team have raised $32 million of the $250 million needed to cover construction. Her life is full of meetings and networking to get the word out and to attract as many people to her cause as she can. There are different ways to give, both large and small, with naming opportunities for different parts of the Centre still available. Shauna is also campaigning for funding from the provincial and municipal governments to help make this much-needed facility a reality. Her competitive nature and unwillingness to concede in the face of challenges makes Shauna the perfect person to spearhead this project.
“Big things can come from simple people and simple things who are willing to push. If you have a vision and you have a way to gather support to help create that vision, we can do a lot,” Shauna says.
And she has put in a ton of work to rally support and funding for the Flourish Centre. With Shauna Ockey championing the initiative, the Flourish Centre is sure to become an example of what sport, recreation, wellness and community is all about.
