Building Belonging provides fun, safe haven for kids

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This article was published 21/10/2017 (2965 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Faith Nayler grew up in the Spence neighbourhood at a time when the wrong path was never far away. She credits Building Belonging, a program funded mainly by the United Way, for starting her down the right road.

“Absolutely,” she said. “If you’re occupied with other things, you don’t fall in to the wrong crowd. You always had people to look up to, who knew right from wrong.”

Building Belonging is headquartered on Langside Avenue at the Magnus Eliason Recreation Centre, a building named for the area’s longtime former city councillor. It provides sporting activities, craft activities, field trips and assistance to children from “six to Grade Six.”

When Nayler recently moved back into the Spence neighbourhood, it seemed only natural for her daughter, Hailey Lague, 6, to attend the same program.

“They have this program where volunteers pick up the kids at school, so it’s really beneficial to mothers who have other children at home,” Nayler said. “It’s going to really help in winter when I don’t have to bundle up the littler one.”

Allison Besel, Building Belonging’s co-ordinator, said working for the program for 10 years has been rewarding. Not only does it provide activities and a safe haven for children, it employs the area’s youth program participants in the summer and helps intern students at Red River College’s Youth Recreation program. It employs two staff full-time and takes on additional staff in the summer.

“It’s great to see how much the kids come to value the support they’ve received from the program,” she said.

Besel said Building Belonging helps teach children they have an ownership stake in the community at large, and it’s reflected in how the children behave in the centre and when they’re out in the larger community.

“They’re very respectful of the space and they take ownership when they’re out in the community,” she said.

The program, which began in 2002, has an annual budget of $108,000 and receives $67,000 from the United Way. Other contributors include Manitoba Justice Lighthouses, the Winnipeg Foundation, the Canada Post Community Foundation, Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, Canada Summer Jobs and the YM-YWCA Summer Work Student Exchange.

She works with other social service agencies in the area to try to provide programming at a reasonable cost. As well, she identifies kids who have particular needs, such as not having enough food at home or needing other services, and hooking them up with agencies that can help.

“We’re very efficient with the funding we get,” she said. “We work with our partners, such as the Dairy Farmers and Winnipeg Harvest, to try to keep our costs down.”

Building Belonging is run by the Spence Neighbourhood Association, and has benefits that extend beyond the children in the program.

Besel said in the 10 years she’s been with the program, she’s noticed a decline in the amount of vandalism in the area, and in particular on the grounds of the Magnus Eliason centre.

“When I started, we had numerous incidents of vandalism — our playground was burned down,” she said. “Kids just didn’t have that strong connection and didn’t feel as though they had any place to go.”

kelly.taylor@freepress.mb.ca