THUNDER BAY – Madison Gunn can’t think of too many places she likes to hang out than the Boys and Girls Club of Thunder Bay.
A regular at the Windsor Street location, the 10-year-old joined hundreds of other youngsters on Wednesday for the organization’s annual open house, which included plenty of fun activities, including bouncy castles and climbing walls, a barbecue and free Merla Mae ice cream.
It’s a fantastic place, Madison said.
“I like it here because everybody is treated equally and you never feel like you’re left out of anything,” she said.
“If you feel like you belong, you’re going to go far in life.”
Her favourite activities at the club are cooking and crafts.
“I like cooking because it’s fun to use all the different ingredients to create something that you like and crafting you get to use your creativity and do a lot of fun things and learn how to do at home.”
Nine-year-old Riahna Carlin says it’s the people she meets and the friends she makes that keep her coming back to the club, which costs a whopping $10 a year to join for one child, $25 for three or more in a family.
“I like coming here because you get to see all your old friends, if you’ve been here before,” she said. “You get to play different types of activities with the groups.
Like Madison, Riahna said she likes doing crafts when she visits the club.
“You get to use your imagination,” she said. “
Christa Ayotte brings her daughter Olivia to the Boys and Girls Club, where she has attended a day camp for the past three weeks.
“It’s fun for the kids. They get to do a lot of extra-curricular activities. They’ve gone to Mount McKay, they’ve gone to Sandy Beach and they’re about to go for gymnastics tomorrow,” Ayotte said. “So it’s well rounded. They get a lot of things to do.”
The open house, held in the final week of August each summer, is a chance for the centre to open its doors to general public, thank the neighbours and let everyone know just what it is the do for Thunder Bay families.
Program director Lee-Ann Skirving said the turnout was fantastic and she expects to see plenty of families registering to return in the fall.
“We have a lot of people who come here and don’t even realize what the Boys and Girls Club does,” Skirving said.
“Then they end up signing their kids up, so we have a lot of kids who will sign up for PA days, for our safe arrival programs or for our drop-in programs. We get a lot of families who come in and say, ‘Wow, we can’t believe you do so much with our kids.’”
The Boys and Girls Club is located at 270 Windsor Street on the north side of the city and 420 Vale Ave. on the south side.
