THUNDER BAY — When the Rowan Tree Collective started in June 2022, six families were involved in the pilot project.
A little over a year later, 25 local families are involved with the organization, which helps young adults over the age of 21 with autism and other neurodevelopmental differences.
“It feels like things are constantly in flux at the moment as things are moving pretty fast,” Rowan Tree Collective co-founder and communications director Michelle Murdoch-Gibson said.
“We expected the growth when we started though, as we knew that there were a lot of families like ours with adult children that had very few opportunities. We took baby steps in terms of admissions and things like that, but now we’re starting to bring more people in.”
The concept of the Rowan Tree Collective came together as Murdoch-Gibson’s son, Rowan, graduated from school.
“We realized that there wasn’t a lot of options or programming for daytime activities and there was the prospect of spending his adult life at home with nothing to do,” Murdoch-Gibson said. “We always dreamed of having some place for him to go where there was a sense of belonging and meaningful activities.
“My good friend Renée’s son Noah was in a similar boat and something like this had been on her radar as well for the last two decades. Once the COVID-19 lockdowns ended and people started to leave houses and be together again, it felt like the right time to fill that need.”
The activities for those at Rowan Tree Collective vary on a daily basis. There are arts, crafts and music lessons done at their location on 280 Park Avenue, in addition to heading to Waverley Park or the marina for walks or yoga classes.
“We talk a lot to the families and find out what they like to do or don’t like to do,” Murdoch-Gibson said. “We want to find the interests of everyone that’s involved.”
Another big aspect of the Rowan Tree Collective is giving back to the community. They make sandwiches for the Dew Drop Inn and bake food that is dropped off to seniors throughout the city.
“I love making sandwiches and putting the ham, lettuce and mustard together,” Noah Fortin said.
“Our participants are like celebrities when they arrive at the Dew Drop Inn,” Murdoch-Gibson added. “They get a huge round of applause and everyone is really happy to see us.”
The food-making process is now expanding as Rowan Tree purchased Both Hands Wood-Fired Pizzeria and Bakery in June to help provide employment opportunities to its members.
“It’s very cliché, but we always thought about maybe opening a café at some point, but we thought that was going to be further down the horizon,” Murdoch-Gibson said. “The kids don’t love coffee, but they sure love pizza.
“We’re regular customers at Both Hands and I guess maybe it was a sign from the universe to have Park Avenue taken over by the Rowan Tree Collective,” she added with a laugh.
“We love the business model there as they use a lot of locally sourced food and they focus on quality. We feel that way about our operations here as well in terms of supporting the community, so it felt like a good match.”
Starting in October, Rowan Tree will be implementing its first cohort of employee training as they gear up to work at Both Hands.
“It’s meant to be flexible to help meet the needs of the participants as they look to achieve their dreams of having a job,” Murdoch-Gibson said.
“We feel like that with the employment model we are hoping to build here, we hope that it can be reproducible and something that other employers will come to us and we can help provide more participants to the workforce.
“One of the things that makes our program unique is that we are not only training everyone here for the individual skills that they need, but we’re also doing training with the existing workers so that they are well-equipped to receive our guys and girls and are able to support them as they arriving into the workforce.”
