NEWS RELEASE
ORILLIA YOUTH CENTRE
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The Home Depot Canada Foundation awards $25,000 to the Orillia Youth Centre through its Orange Door Awards program to support their ongoing youth identified programming gaps. The Youth Centre and the youth they serve have identified youth mental health as one of the biggest risks as it directly impacts schooling, housing, and relationships. The Orillia Youth Centre continues to work to be out in front of these issues as this is the number one issue identified by youth they are seeing and is the biggest factor that impacts their daily lives.
The Orillia Youth Centre is open seven days a week and sees youth of all walks of life coming through their doors. Through structured and unstructured programming they work to meet the needs of many different youth. Programs have been designed to address youth driven topics and they have seen over 3,000 visits so far in 2018. The Orillia Youth Centre is a wonderful community centre with youth of all walks of life coming through our doors; taking part in arts, music, cooking, getting help with homework, support for housing, mental health support, or just hanging out in a safe and supervised environment.
“We are incredibly honoured to have had our grant application vetted and reviewed by youth. We are a youth-driven Centre that works to address issues presented to us by young people. These funds will go a long way in allowing us to work to directly support youth and the challenges they may be facing in Orillia,” said Kevin Gangloff, director, Orillia Youth Centre.
The Home Depot Canada Foundation partnered with youth advisors from the Street Youth Planning Collaborative’s Youth Leaders Committee in Hamilton, Ont., who were once homeless themselves, to help determine where the $25,000 grants would make the greatest impact. The Orange Door Awards program is one of three grants The Home Depot Canada Foundation offers to support organizations working with homeless and at-risk youth across the country.
A special presentation will be taking place Wednesday, April 4, 2018 at 3 p.m. at the Orillia Home Depot located at 3225 Monarch Dr., Orillia.
About The Home Depot Canada Foundation:
The Home Depot Canada Foundation is committed to helping prevent and put an end to youth homelessness in Canada. On any given night, more than 6,000 young people are without a place to call home, making youth homelessness one of the most urgent social issues facing Canadians today. Through The Orange Door Project initiative, the Foundation has pledged $20 million by 2018 to improve housing options, support life-skills development programs, and invest in prevention initiatives and research that ensures funding is directed to the most effective solutions designed to help youth build brighter futures. For more information, please visit: www.orangedoorproject.ca.
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