The original company was founded in 1977 as Regional Press Ltd. A second company Maple Leaf Press Ltd. was established in 1980 and the two companies were amalgamated as Regional Maple Leaf Communications Inc. in 1987. The RMC logo with the red maple leaf was designed by Canadian artist Mel Heath.
Regional Maple Leaf Communications is a member of Edmonton Chamber of Commerce since February 1988. In 1987, RMC was nominated for both the Canadian and the Alberta Solicitor General's Award for Crime prevention and took home the Alberta Award. The Ontario Block Parent Association produced a video for school demonstrations based on the story of "Susan and the Secret Code" taken from the Elementary Safety Book for Children. Gary & Sharon Rosenfeldt, founders of Victims of Violence, partnered with Regional Maple Leaf Communications to publish an annual missing children's poster which is printed on the inside cover of the Elementary Safety Book for Children. In 1986, RMC received a commendation from Victims of Violence for their support in efforts to reduce crimes against children.
Advertising sales, layout, copy, artwork, invoicing, preparation and distribution, in fact everything but the actual printing is done here. Our company is made up of dedicated, hardworking individuals with strong community skills and involvement. A quarter of our employees have been with us for 10-30+ years and half for at least 5 years.
Together we form a caring team that continually strives to positively impact the lives of children. For over a quarter century we have been educating our youth with up-to-date information about safety, drug and alcohol abuse and showing them how to overcome the obstacles kids face as they grow up to become the adults of tomorrow. Our influence in the community is so strongly anchored that countless groups have integrated our books and now our websites into their programs year after year.
In 1999, the RCMP Foundation reviewed and endorsed three of RMC's publications - "The Elementary Safety Book For Children", "Drug Facts for Young People" and "The Teenage Survival Handbook". "Green Planet for Kids" and all four accompanying websites (ElementarySafety.com, DrugFacts4YoungPeople.com, TeenageSurvival.com and GreenPlanet4Kids.com) were included in the endorsement as of April 1, 2014.
In 1996 cartoonist Ben Wicks began illustrating the cartoons for The Elementary Safety Book for Children, Drug Facts for Young People and The Teenage Survival Handbook until his death in 2001. After consulting with his wife, Doreen Wicks, RMC established "The Ben Wicks Award", an opportunity for aspiring artists to compete for the opportunity to illustrate one of the books and receive $10,000. Twenty-seven artists were chosen over the years until 2010 when it was retired for the company to move on to the development of accompanying websites to their publications in order to give access to everyone.
A previous Ben Wicks Award winner, Bob Hahn, was especially commissioned to develop characters for GreenPlanet4Kids.com. After finishing that project he was hired by RMC full-time to also create specific characters for DrugFacts4YoungPeople.com, ElementarySafety.com and TeenageSurvival.com.
Both GreenPlanet4Kids.com and DrugFacts4YoungPeople.com have won the Families On Line Award for the best in family and parenting content. ElementarySafety.com has had some of its colouring pages reproduced as wall murals (Bicycle Safety and Be a Buddy, not a Bully) in the London Health Sciences Centre Children's Hospital in London, Ontario. TeenageSurvival.com has its own AskAndyRMC channel on Youtube where there are animated cartoons of Andy the Alien answering questions from teens about puberty and growing up.
After over 3 decades of office towers in downtown Edmonton, RMC purchased their own building in Railtown in December 2012. RMC celebrated their 40th anniversary in December of 2017 and have now fully phased all the printed magazines to our award-winning websites that everyone can have access to. As part of that transition, renewing print ad customers will now see their advertisements converted to full colour!