1946 – 2026 Watching Steinbach Grow: Community supports efforts to create a very special school

During the third week of September in 1957 people in Steinbach and the surrounding area received a circular in the mail seeking support for an organization hoping to provide a school for the training of children with an intellectual disability.

In case anyone was tempted to classify the letter as “just another appeal for your money,” an editorial in The Carillon News urged people to speak to Bert Friesen, before they tossed the circular into the waste basket.

Bert Friesen was president of the Steinbach Branch of CAMR, and the driving force of a committee of six people responsible for building a modern two-classroom school for the training of intectually disabled children.

Although work on the building was still incomplete, the new Kindale School on Creek Road, across from the Kinsmen swimming pool, opened for classes Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1957.

Himself the father of a child with an intellectual disability, Bert Friesen put hundreds of hours into the construction of the building since the first sod was turned July 1 of that year.

He knew firsthand the heartbreaking despair which faces parents when there is no prospect of ever giving their children even a minimum of training. The same is true of other executive members of the Association: Walter Kroeker, Edmar Rempel, Alf Toews and Mrs A. Q. Friesen.

These parents, all with the same common problem, formed the association in 1956, hoping to create a program to help parents care for intellectually disabled children. They spent their first year investigating the possibilities of starting classes for their children similar to those which had existed in Winnipeg since 1932. They found a willing teacher in the person of Norma Barkman (Mrs. Don Toews) and she even went so far as to take special training in the Winnipeg School.

Mrs. Toews offered to teach without any stipulated salary, but unfortunately no suitable building could immediately be found for classes.

That was when the Steinbach Kinsmen Club stepped up and offered to donate $1,000 and a piece of property for a school, if the committee would undertake the rest. Friesen and his group jumped at the opportunity. Working almost around the clock all summer, association members and a few interested community volunteers built the school almost entirely with their own hands.

A few churches took collections to support the school and the provincial government offered $150 per child per year toward the operation of the school. In addition, the town and municipality where the children lived offered to add $100 per year per child as well.

That still left a big financial gap to be filled and that was why, according to The Carillon News, the 1957 fund drive was more than “just another appeal for your money.”

The early organization these dedicated parents started with the Kindale School has grown to include a variety of training, recreational and residential services for both intellectually challenged children and adults under the umbrella of an Association now known as enVision Community Living.

enVision is a non-profit community-based organization delivering supports and services to provide people who live with an intellectual disability, opportunities for personal growth, development and a place to live in their community.