AMHERST, N.S. — While Bill Schurman is leaving as Amherst’s recreation director his legacy will remain in a community that’s much more active and getting healthier than it was when he arrived.
“The feedback over the last few weeks has been humbling and shocking to some degree. I’m without words and it’s been very emotional for me,” Schurman said in an interview with the Amherst News. “It’s unbelievable the groups, the citizens and the people – some of whom I don’t even know – have said thanks or how much they’re going to miss me. Truth is I was just doing my work.”
Schurman, a native of Summerside, P.E.I., announced in early June that he was resigning from his position to go home to be with his family.
The former recreation director in Summerside, who went on to hold key management positions with the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats and the former Lewiston Maineiacs and the University of Prince Edward Island, came to Amherst in 2014.
It’s didn’t take him long to begin reaching out to community organizations, including the county’s community health boards. It’s then that he came to the realization Amherst needed an attitude change because as an outsider he saw many positive things that people living here didn’t see.
To him, it’s important the forward momentum continues.
“We’ve built a great team here and we have tremendous stakeholders, and it’s going to be better because the goal will remain the same,” he said. “It’s not four walls, a desk and a phone that will make it happen. It’s the community that will make it happen. The best gift people can give me is to make it better.”
When he looks back at five years, he is amazed and encouraged by what Amherst’s people have accomplished in terms of maintaining a positive attitude and striving to be healthier.
“When I arrived the report card said we had an unhealthy community and in order to become a healthier community we had to deal with a number of factors including poverty, physical activity, literacy and health eating,” Schurman said. “A number of years ago a group of stakeholders got together and said let’s strive to become the most active and healthy community in Nova Scotia. Let’s take that step and it continues. We’re not there, and we may never be there, but you have to keep going.”
A big change he has seen is renewed pride in Amherst.
“When you’re feeling better about yourself and your community you become a better entrepreneur, a better employee, a better family person and a better person. There are so many benefits, and most of feeling better and being proud is free,” he said.
While Schurman has received plenty of accolades in the final days of his stay in Amherst, he is quick to say it couldn’t have been done without the support of various community stakeholders, the mayor and council and his staff, whom he has always considered his ‘A’ team.
He also credited the town’s young people for buying into the #seewhyweloveit slogan and the plan to become more physically active. He said he loved every moment of working with not only the Amherst Youth Town Council, but other youth organizations.
He said that positive attitude is changing things.
“We are working to recruit physicians to our community. If you were a physician would you rather go to a community that’s unhealthy or not feeling well, or would you rather go to a healthy community?” he said. “Those are things that influence where people live, work and play. All we did was wave the flag a little higher and encourage people to get involved a little more, and the community accepted that.”
The recent participACTION Challenge, in which Amherst finished in the top five in Atlantic Canada, shows the community is buying into what his ‘A’ team at the recreation department, the town and all the stakeholders have been working toward.
And positivity is contagious, he added.
“It’s a reminder that we’re going in the right direction,” he said. “When you stop someone on the street and ask them how they’re feeling they have two choices. They can say they’re feeling good or they’re not good. When you say things are good, people have a positive feeling about the reaction, but if you say things are not good that person says ‘I was just talking to someone who said things are not good.’ By the time that gets around there’s nothing good. Positivity works, but you have to back it up with action.”
He said it takes citizens to lead the charge. Government can help, follow, lead or be in the back, but he said the community needs to be part of where they live, work and play.
“They can’t say it’s someone else’s job,” he said.
Because of the community’s work, Amherst is now being regarded as a leader – whether because of the no-fee youth ice program, Smoke-Free Spaces, the UpLift program at West Highlands or other programs.
Also gone, he said, is the comment that Nova Scotia ends at Truro.
“That was because we let it. You have to go get things and earn respect at the table. If you have the attitude that you’re not going to get something you’re not going to get it. The other thing that’s very important is you can’t be afraid to fail. Not everything we did was perfect or 100 per cent. And, you’re going to get flak when it’s not. But, you can’t be afraid of that because if you are you won’t change anything.”
He said everything combined leads to an increased sense of belonging.
