Grande Prairie Regional College (GPRC) is launching its new “GPRC Cares” initiative to support the communities it serves while we respond together to the COVID-19 outbreak.

GPRC’s response to COVID-19 saw most of its courses, services and programs move online in a matter of days in the middle of March. It was a tremendous effort by staff and faculty to make this transition as seamless as possible for students.

Dr. Robert Murray, President and CEO of GPRC said they knows how deeply the response to this global pandemic has affected organizations, businesses and individual families in our communities and we want to make sure GPRC is part of helping people through these challenging times.

"It's campaign aimed at ensuring that we are fulling our important role in supporting the communities that we are in the communities that we serve"

 

The College has started to make many of the services it offered in-person daily to students available online for the entire community.

The “GPRC Cares” initiative has two key focuses – the first being a mental health strategy for GPRC staff, students and the broader community, and the second being a community outreach program to assist those in need during the COVID crisis.

GPRC’s mental health program is doing live weekly video seminars by videoconference between noon and 1 p.m. in addition to a regular Mental Health Tip. Students and faculty in Fine Arts are performing and sharing music online that inspires them in difficult times. Wolves Athletics and the Sport, Fitness, Wellness department are working on at-home workouts and sharing inspiring tips for their student athletes that will be shared online for the entire community to try.

 

"We were identifying that there were some needs that we really needed to think about and especially supporting peoples mental health in a signifcant transistion period" Murray said. 

All this is being shared on the College’s social media accounts and can be found on GPRC’s YouTube channel. Follow GPRC on social media to stay up to date on these initiatives. GPRC is also reaching out to other community organizations who are directly helping members of our communities to see what supports are needed. Our goal is to connect these needs to GPRC staff supported by College resources. For example, various community organizations are working on initiatives to deliver meals, groceries and prescriptions to those who need such supports and the College is exploring having staff use fleet vehicles to help these organizations.

GPRC is finding ways to support those organizations by supporting our employees to get involved in these important initiatives.