Sports pad a student's dream come true
Youth Challenge Fund provides $450,000 after Dorset Park teens mobilize
YCF has invested $46.6 million in 111 youth-led initiatives for youth facing the greatest challenges in the 13 priority neighbourhoods. The Ontario government invested $15 million and provided another $15 million to match United Way donor contributions of $16.6 million, for a total investment in youth of $46.6 million.
- Find out more about YCF initiatives at youthchallengefund.org
"The young people got involved because they wanted to effect change in their community"
- Victor Beausoleil, youth coordinator of Dorset Park Youth Council
At first, it was just a dream – a place to play basketball, cricket and volleyball. A safe place in their neighbourhood where they could get together, have meetings and just hang out.
Twenty-eight high school students will now see that dream come to fruition when a sports pad opens up this month at the McGregor Park Recreation Centre near Kennedy and Lawrence.
Victor Beausoleil, youth coordinator of Dorset Park Youth Council, says much of the credit goes to the "dreamers" themselves, for picking up the ball and running with it, so to speak.
The students arranged with the City of Toronto to get space inside the community centre, then they started mobilizing.
"The young people got involved because they wanted to effect change in their community," Beausoleil said.
The Dorset Park Youth Initiative was one of 17 groups last month to get money from the Youth Challenge Fund, a $45 million private-public funding initiative, involving the province and United Way, with a mandate to support youth-run projects in the city.
In May, the YCF distributed its last chunk of money – about $27.6 million – to groups focused on creating physical spaces for youth.
Over the past three years, the YCF, chaired by Argonauts executive Michael "Pinball" Clemons, has funded more than 110 projects and 90 youth-led organizations around the city – among them Flemo City, a radio station run out of Flemingdon Park, and an arts program at Steeles-L'Amoreaux community.
The YCF was born of the "summer of the gun," a deadly period in 2005 when 52 youth across the city were killed by gunfire. Provincial and private donors came up with a $45 million fund to be used to help combat the root causes of violence.
A lack of engagement, little space and few youth-run programs in the city's 13-high risk neighbourhoods were all seen as reasons youth were turning to violence.
In the case of Dorset Park Youth Council, the high school students were involved from the initial phase of planning.
They wrote the proposal to get the YCF interested, and since receiving their $450,000 from the fund they have remained involved in every step of the decision-making. "They shared their idea, put their ideas on paper, went to City of Toronto meetings – it was a year process," said Beausoleil.
They are now learning ways to keep the program self-sufficient, through grant writing and proposal development.
Being sustainable was one prerequisites to selection, said Pamela Grant, executive director of YCF.
"The whole purpose of the Youth Challenge Fund was to provide young people who generally have not been able to be on the system's radar – the most disenfranchised youth – with opportunities to discover how they can make a difference," she said.
With the last of the YCF money doled out, the focus will move to making sure the funds are properly allocated over the next few years, Grant said.
Adapted from an article in Toronto Star, June 25, 2008, by Staff Reporter, Noor Javed.
Reproduced with permission - Torstar Syndication Services
