THUNDER BAY – Calling all past and present clients of Our Kids Count: the organization wants you to join in at a 20th anniversary celebration.
Executive director Gladys Berringer extended the invitation for the Sept. 10 event, to be staged at the Thunder Bay Boy’s and Girl’s Club.
“We want to let the community know to come out and be part of the celebration,” Berringers said on Thursday, taking a quick break from an open house being staged at the Our Kids Count facility on McKenzie Street in the city’s east end.
“Anyone who was part of Our Kids Count or who attended our programs can get a hold of us and join us for this party.”
The free event is all about the children, she added.
“We’ll be kicking it off at 11 a.m. with the formal presentations and we are hoping to have the original executive director, Jane Ramsey, visiting with us. We actually have a few former participants speaking as well about what Our Kids Count meant to them when they were part of the programs.”
Lunch and food will also be on served, with activities scheduled for the afternoon for families to take part in.
Berringer said the organization was born in 1996 when calls were extended by the Public Health Agency of Canada to apply for two streams of funding – the Community Action Program for Children and Canada’s Prenatal Nutrition Program.
About 30 agencies at the local level got together to discuss the services already being provided and identify the gaps.
“Back in the day, Our Kids Count was created to meet the mandate of what the Public Health Agency was striving to do and also meet the gap in our community,” Berringer said.
It’s grown plenty in the past two decades.
The community kitchen programs have been around from the start, beginning at their original location in the County Park area.
“What’s been new is the fact we really expanded our mandate,” she said, pointing to the move four years ago into the much larger McKenzie Street space.
Berringer said while prenatal care at the federal level extended to children as old as six, they found they were being approached by parents of older children looking for assistance.
“We really wanted to serve that (demographic), so through other funding sources we’ve been able to expand and reach out to all populations with the community kitchen program,” Berringer said.
“We have older adults, we have men coming to cook, we have the youth the teens – anyone that’s interested in food, how to cook healthy and how to save money is welcome to come.”
Families need the support, she added.
“Every child, every family deserves to have the best. That’s what we’re here to do.”
Moving forward, the biggest goal is possibly finding a north-side location to house a satellite site, pairing with a Westfort location to service that area of the city.
“There’s a definite need for a west side site,” Berringer said.
