At a series of open houses yesterday, presenters gave their guidance on how Estevan could move into becoming a prosperous community.

The presentations were given out by 13 ways, a consultancy group based out of Alberta, with a mission statement to "facilitate success in building communities people want to live in and can prosper within".

The presentation was headed up by Doug Griffiths, whose role with 13 ways is Chief /Community Builder, along with Heather Thomson, the organization's Consumer Behaviour Expert.

The two talked on topics such as downtown revitalization, daycare availability, and senior housing.

Griffiths says that the city, despite seeing some challenges in the coming years, is well-posed to surge ahead.

"Estevan has an incredible amount of potential. I know that it's facing some challenges with the loss of jobs with coal and power that are yet to come," said Griffiths, "We weren't contracted to address those because those are provincial and national policy issues and economic trends that are beyond what we could do at 13 Ways but also beyond what the city of Estevan can do."

"They brought us in to work on the future of Estevan and where it can go and what it can do. Estevan is perfectly primed to address a whole world of new opportunities going forward. With support from the coal transition fund, there's the opportunity to invest in the downtown to bring it back to being a social and business hub of the community."

Griffiths had nothing but kind things to say about the local business and community leaders, who he has been working with over the last 8 months.

"The council and the administration and the members of the business community have been incredibly aggressive, as we've come up with these ideas and come up with them and put them together into a strategic plan they're already running with half of these ideas," said Griffiths, "They're pursuing these things as fast as we can put them together, which is some pretty amazing leadership across this community."

"I have seen Estevan improve in the 8 months that we've been working with them. It's been frustrating because of the pandemic we haven't been able to visit and be here like we'd want to, we've only managed a couple, so it's been challenging. But in the time that we have been here and been working with people, we've seen the energy building, we've seen the excitement building, we've seen new investments made, we've seen new businesses on the main street, people are buying into this, the potential and future of Estevan."

"There is a lot of stuff Estevan can do and it's got the best potential I've seen in a community for quite some time."