Just like that, we have suddenly slipped into summer, almost before we could take a breath! It has been an exciting whirlwind at Why Not City Missions, highlighted by our annual fundraising golf tournament. The event took place on an incredibly hot and humid day in June and boasted our best turnout in the tournament's history. At the tournament, we were thrilled to announce that we have been awarded a fantastic two-year grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. This grant will help us add staffing to our expanding programs and bring our current staff wages in line with similar organizations and services in the area.
The same week we were excited to be able to share our organization’s mission and story with a video crew who will present us with a video to be used to spread the word about our work and impact with youth in the Brantford community.
At our active youth centre, we recently hosted two big events! We held a community youth carnival night with games, snacks and competitions with prizes. We wanted to celebrate the beginning of summer and to attract new youth to come check out the centre in a fun and easy, low barrier way. We followed that event with our annual awards night, where we celebrated our youth’s achievements made during the past school year. We celebrate growth in maturity and character and issue some fun awards for quirky skills or traits. It is a night where we speak positivity and encouragement into our youth. Both were great events that saw all our staff working together to provide fun and meaningful events for our youth.
At Charlie’s Place, our young men’s home, we have focused on continuing to give back through community service. This included doing a workday at Circle Square Ranch to help prepare for their summer camps as well as regularly prepping meals at The Brantford Blessing Centre to serve an increasing population in need of meal supports. One of our young men is working his way through completing his high school diploma and looking at an apprenticeship in the trades, something we will gladly work alongside him to help him achieve! Another is engaged in growing his vegetable garden and taking pride in maintaining a neatly kept property. We are so proud of what these young men are achieving and working on as they fully engage in the programs and supports we offer them!
At SHYP, our supportive housing for young parents program, we have a full house with babies and toddlers and babies on the way! All the young moms are hard at work, continually learning to be the best moms they can be. They are learning how to work together and support each other and how to run a household and cook meals on a budget. A couple of our young moms are working on pursuing post-secondary schooling and taking advantage of our in house supports to help them prepare for this goal. We have just started a bi-weekly group therapy session on healthy boundaries and finding self-worth. This program allows young mothers to share their self-perceptions and encourage each other by recognizing the strengths they see in their peers. We cannot wait to see all that these young women will achieve in their time with us when given the support and tools to thrive, both as moms and young women, with goals and dreams to fulfil.
Each summer, across all our programs, we strive to offer opportunities for our youth to take a break from their usual routines. They can enjoy the summer weather and participate in fun activities with our staff. We know that many of our youth do not get to experience summer vacations or day trips with their families of origin and it is so nice to be able to plan a few special activities to offer our youth. These are great times to connect in a different and impactful way and can be useful tools to keep our youth engaged over the summer. Simple beach trips, trips to the local zoo, hikes and picnics are planned along with our annual camping trip for our youth centre. Our camping trip provides us an opportunity to graduate our youth who are aging out of the youth centre drop in and celebrate their next stage as they enter adulthood. If you would like to partner with us in making this summer a summer that includes some happy memories and positive experiences, please donate to our summer campaign at the links below!
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