Daycare donations earn gratitude
'We're super grateful,' says Centre for Northern Families to donors as it prepares to move to new location
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, November 11, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Donations have poured in to support the new Centre for Northern Families daycare which is set to open in its new location in the coming weeks.
Yellowknife Women's Society board chairperson Anusa Sivalingam, left, accepts a $20,000 novelty cheque from Gaeleen MacPherson, Dominion Diamond Corporation's head of human resources. The society, which runs the Centre for Northern Families, will use the funds for a vehicle for its daycare, which is moving to 54 Street. - photo courtesy of the Yellowknife Women's Society |
"The community support has been really strong," said Anusa Sivalingam, the chairperson of the Yellowknife Women's Society. The society runs the centre.
The daycare is moving out of the centre's location on 50 Avenue near Capital Suites.
The Yellowknife Women's Society purchased the house on 54 Street earlier this year and renovations have been carried out to prepare the space for youth.
Some of the work has been provided as an in-kind donation. Dominion Diamond Corporation recently contributed $20,000 that will be used to purchase a van for the centre to transport children.
Donations were also collected at the tills of Glen's Independent Grocer downtown, bringing in $600 over about a month this fall.
Franchise owner Glen Meeks kicked in $2,000 as well, and the $2,600 raised will go toward work at the new daycare and supplies to get it up and running, Sivalingam said.
"We're super grateful," she said this week.
"We're really happy we're in a community so supportive of the initiatives that we've put forward and what we're trying to do in providing services to women and their families in the
community."
The new daycare for children between 12 months and five years of age is expected to allow the centre to care for more children than the existing 20 spaces at the 50 Avenue location, though the exact number has yet to be determined.
The daycare is relocating as its existing facility on 50 Avenue, which also operates as an overnight shelter for women, is poised to add new semi-independent living units.
The Centre for Northern Families name will move with the daycare. Sivalingam said the shelter on 50 Avenue will get a new name.
She said the daycare will hold an open house to show off the new space, likely sometime in the new year.
The Women's Society submitted the lone bid to administer the city's Housing First program for women and men that began running this fall, starting with placing six chronically homeless people in housing.
