The Children’s Aid Society of Nipissing and Parry Sound officially opened its new youth hub on Friday.

It’s called the Beauchamp hub.

The name recognizes Steve Beauchamp who contributed $250,000 to the project.

He says the money will be spent on renovations and staffing.

He says he grew up in North Bay and wanted to give back back to those less fortunate.

“We wanted to give back to kids and most importantly we wanted to give back to kids in the community we grew up in. We’re really excited to be able to fund not just the building but the ongoing programming for the next several years.”
The space has a full kitchen, laundry, tech stations to do homework and job search and can serve as a drop in centre as well.

Executive Director Gisele Hebert says this is a real gift to the youth of the area.

“We have about 55 youth between the ages of 16-22 that are in our care and another 15 that are 15. So this is something we’ve paid attention to and we want to make sure their well prepared moving into adulthood.”

The hub will focus on developing a 20 week workshop for youth that will focus on skills like cooking and nutrition education, budgeting, mental health self care and art therapy.

The facility which the C-A-S- has purchased on Elmwood Avenue may also become the future One Site location for Children’s Aid in North Bay.