Martensville Youth Connection (MYC) is offering unique ways for the younger generation of Martensville to get involved in the community and provides a safe space for them to go to learn about mental health care, play games, socialize, volunteer and more.
This summer, there are plenty of fun activities planned, with a community clean up already having taken place on July 13th. On July 28th, the MYC will be gathering at the senior complex across from the Martensville Sports Centre to cook a meal from scratch for the residents, which include a meal of pulled chicken, salad and dessert. This event takes place each month and according to Katherine Carter of Carter’s Counselling Services and MYC organizer, it helps to teach the youth involved valuable life skills. While there, the youth also play board games and cards with the residents.
There will also be numerous outdoor activities planned for summer including; capture the flag and pickle ball, as well as pizza night twice a month thanks to generous donations of pizza from Boston Pizza, a “Minute to Win It” night and Mario Kart tournaments.
Throughout these events, youth also have a chance to learn about addiction and how to deal with conflict and stress this month.
MYC has numerous partnerships in the community, with one of them being Paws Republic Centre for Pets, which provides the youth with an opportunity to help clean up and learn about the responsibilities of caring for a pet each Tuesday.
“If the youth attend ten Tuesdays, they receive a volunteer certificate to add to their resume for volunteering their time. It has been a great addition to MYC to be able to relate mental health and animals into our teachings. We are very blessed to have this partnership with Paws, as it is one of the busiest nights yet,” Carter said.
The partnerships with local businesses is what makes MYC possible as the programming is all based on community funding and grants. “At this time, we have no secure funding and we only have enough funds to continue until August 31, 2022. We do not know what the fall will look like. Many companies have donated and it has been amazing, but we are still in need of $50,000 in order to continue to operate to 2023,” Carter explained.
Funding is always a necessary part of the programming; however, MYC is also always in need of food and snacks to feed the youth, especially fruits and vegetables. Carter noted that they are looking for a business to partner with that could provide fruits and vegetables monthly.
“We are also looking for other businesses to sponsor our cooking nights at the villa, or the community clean up events. We need the community supports, or MYC cannot continue. We recently posted a list of items we need for the summer on Facebook. We want to work with the community and get to know the businesses with the hopes that businesses can hire some of the youth we are working with. We do teach them resume writing and interview skills in preparation for employment.”
Since inception, MYC has seen immense growth and is currently at capacity with an average night consisting of ten youth. Ideally, MYC would like to secure funding and be able to operate within a larger space in order to support more local youth.
“We have seen many benefits from our program. We are interacting with animals which can positively impact mental health, we are giving back to the community by participating in cooking for seniors and visiting with them. We are doing community clean up to keep our city clean. We have youths now seeing counselors for support and we have youth who are able to access food and support free of charge through us. Many of our youth state that at home, they do not have adequate food and we offer them a place to come, have a snack and relax. With inflation, this is becoming even more apparent with young families who have children,” Carter said. “We see the benefits of youth having safe spaces to discuss their feelings and talk to others about their situations and that many can relate to each other. We also see an increase in youth participating in activities they might not have been able to if there was a charge such as playing sports, creating stress balls, tie dying shirts, planting and more.”
For more information about MYC, visit ‘Martensville Youth Connection’ on Facebook, or https://possibilitiesrecovery.ca/myc-youth-program.
