Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

Community

Money from the city, United Way means Cool Aid Society youth centre staying open

Feb 12, 2025 | 6:00 AM

An infusion of funds from the United Way and the city means Grande Prairie’s Cool Aid Society youth centre will stay open at least until the end of June.

A loss of a funder meant the centre needed another source of money or it would have to close at the end of March.

Society financial director Amanda Beret-Gerber says she has seen a lot of support come from the community over the last couple weeks…

“This is going to be a huge stepping stone to get us to the end of the school year. We’re going to work out butts off to get more than that.”

“I have reservations, just because losing a $16,000-$17,000 a month contract that we’ve had for a decade, it’s huge, that’s the program. Replacing that is going to be a challenge but one that we’re willing to do.”

The society had talked to a city committee about up to $60,000. The United Way reached out to the society after that says board chair Amber McGuinness.

“We heard it in the news and one of our board members brought it to our attention and we had an immediate emergency board meeting to discuss allocating our funds, which we had not yet set for the 2025 year for our 2024 funds.”

“They have aligned perfectly with our mission and it was an easy decision.”

McGuinness says the board felt comfortable with that number, and the vote to go ahead was unanimous.

“We felt confident that the city may be able to meet us half way and support it together.”

The help from the United Way was contingent on city providing $30,000, plus having city staff meet with the society about long-term funding ideas.

Council approved both ideas at Monday’s meeting.

Beret-Gerber says in the last quarter, there were 561 bookings in the society’s after-school programs.

“With a total of 996 youth accessing our programs, our teens were at 230 and our paid programs were at 125; so overall we had 1,395 bookings just in (that) three month time frame.”

“We have about 300 families that see us all the time and having a no-cost program for them just taken out of that is huge.”

Beret-Gerber adds a couple of businesses have reached out about helping.

“Two major corporations are willing to essentially sponsor time frames for our youth, so we would have like a technology six week program, and they would sponsor that program or we would have an arts program for six weeks and they would sponsor that program, so it’s less (of a) cost.”

McGuinness says the United Way may be doing other things to help the society.

“We have a few big events coming up in the future, and speaking with (the) Cool Aid Society and having them be named, is definitely on top of our priority list… so there’s a good chance that we will have more funding for them throughout the year.”

Beret-Gerber says the society has an offer on a former location on 96 Street, something that could net $135,000 if the sale goes through.

She adds they still hope to have a second facility, one in the north end of the city and one in the south. The current youth centre is located near the Dave Barr Community Centre.