Williams Lake First Nation youth, ages 13 to 18, now have a place they can call their own.
Over the last five months the WLFN Recreation Team worked hard to renovate the old work out gym transforming it into a brand new Youth Drop in Centre.
“We had a bunch of youth that were telling us that they would love a space for themselves so we took that information and started rolling with it.” Recreation Manager Lucas Kiefiuk said, “We took a space that wasn’t being utilized as much as we would have liked it to be and tore it apart, put it back together, new flooring, new paint on the walls, brand new equipment inside of it from a pool table to indoor basketball.”
Kiefiuk said they have typical drop-in where they can just come in, hang out and fun, as well as several programs that are offered.
“We have life skill courses anywhere from teaching kids how to do to how to build resumes. Past that we have cultural courses that we’ll be offering through the support and help of our cultural coordinators and elders,” Kiefiuk noted.
He added that they’ve seen a pretty drastic increase in the number of youths coming in since they opened the Drop in Centre last Monday averaging around 12 to 15 daily.
“We’ve gotten a ton of positive feedback from the community through our social media pages, through word of mouth. We’ve had a ton of community members pop by just to see the space and they’re very excited about it.”