06/18/2026
Friendship Centre bridges communities with dual events
June 17, 2026 · by Admin2017 · 0
A live band performs for community members during the Seniors Week taco party at the Slave Lake Native Friendship Centre on Friday, June 5, 2026. The afternoon of music and food capped off two days of celebrations that also included the National Day of Friendship.
Homemade decorations, live music, and shared meals brought dozens of residents together last week as the Slave Lake Native Friendship Centre hosted back-to-back events to honour local elders and foster cross-cultural connections.
The community hub opened its doors for a dual celebration, marking the National Day of Friendship on June 4, followed immediately by a Seniors Week taco party on June 5.
For Barb Courtorielle, executive director of the Slave Lake Native Friendship Centre, the exhausting but rewarding week was a resounding success.
“We had a great turnout for the breakfast, and everybody enjoyed the music,” Courtorielle says of the June 4 kickoff, which featured a pancake breakfast, handicraft store access, and live music by Jared Sowan. “We had 87 seniors show up for the Day of Friendship. We kind of mixed it up with Seniors Week, so we had a great turnout and a lot of fun.”
The June 4 gathering is part of a much larger national movement. According to the National Association of Friendship Centres, the friendship centre network originated in the 1950s and now forms the largest off-reserve Indigenous service delivery infrastructure in Canada.
Courtorielle notes that each of Alberta’s 21 locations celebrates the June 4 milestone differently, adding unique local elements to ensure no two events are exactly the same.
In Slave Lake, that unique local flair carried over into June 5 to align with Alberta’s provincially recognized Seniors’ Week. The centre’s hall was transformed for a vibrant taco party, complete with homemade papel picado-style banners, live country music, and an Indian taco lunch.
Organizing consecutive community-wide events requires roughly six weeks of planning, but Courtorielle is quick to point out that the hands-on preparation comes directly from the seniors themselves.
“If you look around, a lot of the decorations are homemade,” Courtorielle says. “On Mondays and Wednesdays during the drop-in, 12 of our seniors created the decorations. They coloured, painted, and cut everything. It is a lot of fun working with them.”
She notes that seniors coordinator Joyce works year-round to plan activities alongside dedicated regular attendees. Additional community volunteers, such as a resident named Lorna, also stepped up to facilitate a well-attended merchandise bingo held earlier in the week on June 3.
While the food and entertainment are the primary draws, the underlying mission of the week speaks directly to the civic health of Slave Lake. The Friendship Centre functions as a neutral, welcoming space for Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents to build relationships.
“When we get together on common ground to build friendships and relationships, it’s good for everybody,” Courtorielle says. “We get to understand each other, have more compassion, and work together.”
She highlights that this socialization is especially vital for local elders, who are highly vulnerable to social isolation. Some elders do not speak English as a first language, which Courtorielle says can make navigating everyday life and building new connections incredibly difficult. Meeting the broader community in a safe setting helps bridge that gap.
“It helps us build a happier community, especially for our Indigenous seniors, because they can struggle,” she says. “Meeting other community members here is very welcoming.”
For the staff, seeing those social barriers break down makes the long hours worthwhile.
“The best part was when people got up to dance,” Courtorielle says. “It was nice seeing everybody enjoy themselves dancing to the music.”
While regular seniors programming will scale back to a few monthly meetings over the summer to give attendees a holiday break, the Friendship Centre is currently preparing for Indigenous Peoples Day on June 19. Courtorielle says the upcoming event, held in the park, typically draws around 500 people.
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