Generous donation helps Strathmore youth

Times Contributor

 

Canada West Self Storage in Strathmore raised $1,200 for the Strathmore Youth Club. Raising $1,000 through a Storage Wars fundraiser and with a $200 check from the Strathmore Legion, Canada West Self Storage was able to give the Youth Club a substantial amount of money to help with their programs. 

“Well we usually do a Storage Wars and a garage sale every year and this year we wanted to do something new,” said Kaitlynn Stewart, the facility manager at Canada West. “We thought about doing it for the Youth Club instead, and that’s for more than one person, that’s for the whole community.

“We knew they needed a lot of help and they’re trying to make the facility better than what it is and we wanted to help them out.” 

Storage Wars was a very successful fundraiser, and it was really a win-win situation for both Canada West and the community. 

“People that aren’t paying their storage rent, after a few months, we sell their unit and if we get more than what is owing on the storage unit then we donated it to the Strathmore Youth Club,” said Stewart. But Canada West wasn’t done there; since the Youth Club is such a great cause they asked around for others who wanted to donate. 

“We went out and handed out a whole bunch of letters asking if anybody wanted to donate money or anything like that to the Strathmore Youth Club and [the Leigion] donated a check for $200 dollars,” said Stewart. 

Shannon Zieman, the program director at the Strathmore Youth Club, was pleasantly surprised by the donation.  

“They just contacted me…[Kaitlynn] phoned me one day and said that they were having this fundraiser and that they had chosen our group as who they wanted to support,” said Zieman. “The money that was raised is going towards our summer camp programs helping to facilitate weekly field trips on our day camps.” 

The camps run all summer, Monday to Friday for kids ages 6-12.

“Each week has a theme attached to it. So all the activities that the kids participate in follow along that theme and the field trip that we arrange for them fits into that as well,” said Zieman. “So funds raised help us pay for the field trip and the busing because we don’t include that in our program costs.” 

The camp costs $100 for Youth Club members and $120 for non-members. The kids get to go to places like the Science Centre in Calgary. The program runs right to the end of August and there is still space available for people who want to join. Those interested should contact Colina Clark, the Program Coordinator at the Youth Club, at 403-934-4918.