Boys and Girls Club community spirit is still intact after St. Anthony fire
CBC
The St. Anthony, N.L., Boys and Girls club is "starting to dream about what's possible to make the community even stronger" after its building was destroyed by a fire, said national CEO Owen Charters.
The Boys and Girls Club was centered in a historic Grenfell Mission property that stood in the Northern Peninsula community for over 100 years. It was a home base for after school programs and other resources for children and youth.
Even though the structure is in disrepair, the community is persevering.
Programming at the St. Anthony club usually consisted of recreation, arts and crafts and other developmental activities. It was also a space for students to study, do homework, and have a meal.
BGC Canada represents clubs all across the country, and the CEO said the wider organization is there to help St. Anthony. Charters said the need to rebuild is an opportunity to expand what the club can do for youth.
"What could a club be now? And what should the kids want?" Charters said the organization is asking itself.
The kids' ideas for a new permanent club ranged from tall slides to chickens to a library, he said.
"I'm not sure we'll have chickens, but … [we are] really starting to work with the community now," Charters told CBC News.
In the meantime, the club has been welcomed to use community spaces such as the local school, arena, and mall.
Charters said the provincial government has committed to be the "primary funder" for a new Boys and Girls Club in St. Anthony once a suitable piece of land is found. He hopes to have a new space up and running within the next three years.
Clubs that provide space for young people like the Boys and Girls Club are the heartbeat of rural towns like St. Anthony, said Charters, so the community is making sure those programs can still happen without a permanent space.
"We talked to many families there, but we've also interviewed youth who've come through the club … and they said if the club were not there, quite literally, they feel their future pathway would have been quite different," he said.
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
One of the leaders of the team tasked with modernizing Newfoundland and Labrador's education system says she never would have joined if she thought privatization was on the table.
If Tesla owner Dann Kingsley were in the market for a new electric vehicle (EV) today, he says he would strongly consider other brands first.
After a fender-bender before Christmas, 85-year-old Ossie Gildart was told he'd have to take a driver's test. But a surprise was waiting for him when he walked into Service New Brunswick in Bathurst.
One person is dead and another is in critical condition, after a fire broke out in a two-storey building in Montreal's Sud-Ouest borough.
Walmart Canada was recently selling one-litre cartons of milk in Manitoba stores for higher prices than provincial law allows.
Members of CUPE Local 456, which represents city workers in Melville, Sask., have voted in favour of job action due to wage disputes and high employee turnover.
Some schools in Queens and Prince counties are starting one hour later Wednesday due to road conditions following yesterday's storm.
Edmonton's city auditor has made eight recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the city's paratransit service, saying clients who rely on the service will benefit from the changes.
Electric bus manufacturers hit hard by pandemic-era supply chain chaos could soon find themselves pummelled by a trade war.
A workshop will be held Wednesday evening to help give Windsor residents the necessary tools on how to interact with people experiencing homelessness.
Buy Canadian — that's the message being pushed across the country. But on the other end of the movement, some small business owners in Calgary who feel the pressure to pivot to Canadian products say that isn't as easy as it sounds.
Inside a community centre in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley, poster board collages display photos of a young woman with a big smile on her face. She's shown with her arms wrapped around family members, being silly in selfies with friends, standing proud in a high school graduation gown.
As an outreach worker helping people with life-limiting illnesses in Thunder Bay, Ont., Julie Diner says she doesn't spend much time in the office.