Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 15/00) - Storefront for Voluntary Agencies will no longer be providing a storefront, or office space, for many of Yellowknife's volunteer groups.

The 23-year-old organization announced late last month it would no longer provide voice mail or mailboxes for seven organizations, or rent out office space to the four groups currently sharing the large office on 51st Avenue.

"We have decided, for various reasons, partially related to funding, to refocus on volunteers and volunteer training," said Rosemary Cairns, a member of Storefront's board.

In order to do that, Storefront is dropping its office services, moving to a smaller space and will no longer be a landlord, Cairns said. Although typing, phone and mailboxes were part of Storefront's original services, offering office space was done out of necessity, Cairns said.

"The only way we could afford the space was to lease out some of the offices to other agencies," she said.

"Now some of the agencies have left and we can't afford to maintain that amount of space."

Many of the agencies who did use the office have moved, including AIDS Yellowknife.

Gail Gaudon, outreach co-ordinator for the HIV/AIDS awareness group, said although the move was inconvenient, the bigger office will help with her work.

"The location (Storefront) wasn't accessible to many of the people we wanted to serve," she said. "It made sense to move."

AIDS Yellowknife now has space for a drop-in room and meetings, she said, while paying the same amount of rent.

Other groups haven't been so lucky. Big Buddies, which used Storefront's voice mail service, had to switch their phone to the YWCA with little notice, according to spokesperson Marie Chenard.

"People have to know where to contact us," Chenard said. "We can't just say, 'Oh, we're not here anymore.'"

Denise Bekkema, Storefront's executive director, said money is at the bottom of the changes. Most of the agency's funding in 1999 came for specific projects, such as the Youth Volunteer Corps, and not to run the office, she said.

Those grants totalled $319,000 last year. With the one-time funding gone, Storefront will only receive its core funding from Yellowknife Health and Social Services, which totals $63,000.

With the money crunch, Bekkema said Storefront decided to concentrate on its most-used service: volunteer training and placement.

"Over 60 agencies use our volunteer services, while six or less use the office," said Bekkema. "So we chose to stay with what more people were using."

Bekkema said Storefront has not decided when it will move from its current office, or where.

At least one former Storefront tenant is staying put.

Anne Kennedy of the Yellowknife Foster Family Association said the agency will continue its lease until its 2000 fiscal year funding is settled.