Dryden woman wants to bring back city's youth centre

A young woman in Drydenhas started a campaign to reopen the Dryden Youth Centre.

Shayla Moore is trying to raise money to revive the centre, which was closed in 2013 after the city cutits funding.

Moore spent lots of time at the centre when she was in highschool and thinks other youth could benefit from it, she said.

"There was computers in there, and people could go on Facebook, and they could do their homework, they had artsupplies, they had games, and sometimes we did movie nights," Moore said.

"I think we had a Wii and an X-box [that]we could play video games on, andwe participated in Relay for Life one year."

She saidshe started her fundraiser after noticing a petition on-line calling for the centre to reopen.

"If we don't have a lot of money to keep the youth centre going, then we should try and raise money so we can get it back up and running," she said, adding she hasn't yet worked out exactly how the money would be spent.

Moore has set an initial target of $5,000. Former Dryden city councilor Shayne MacKinnon, who voted against closing the centre when he was on council in 2013, estimated that the centre cost the city about $40,000 a year; most of that money was to cover staffing.

Without the centre, Moore said, there isn't much for youth to do in town.

'A really awesome initiative'

So far, Moore's GoFundMe campaign hasn't raised any money, but Moore has won a fan in the form of Catherine Kiewning, a youth engagement coordinator with the Northwestern Health Unit.

"I think it's a really awesome initiative," Kiewning said.

"I think it would be really awesome to have a space where young people can just go without having to worry that they're loitering or have to purchase anything."

"It's such a great initiative," she added.

Virtual youth centre project in Thunder Bay

While Moore strives to reopen the Dryden Youth Centre's doors, several young people in Thunder Bay are working to create a virtual centre to replace Youth Tbay, a place for at-risk youth that closed this summer due to funding shortages.

Young people will be able touse the on-line centre as a safe social space and a place to find resources,said Daniel Voss acting executive director of the Thunder Bay Youth Connections Coalition, which is spearheadingthe project.

The group doesn't have the means to support a physical centre, he noted.

"City officials... are always for helping youth issues, but when the actual projects come tothe table or when things are actually trying to happen, it's a lot of 'well we don't have funding,'" he said.

"Youth are kind of put on the back-burner," Voss said.

The coalition is currently fundraising on the web site Indiegogo to send its board members for leadership training at a Student Commission of Canada conference in March.