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YMCA Emergency Child Care Centre helps fill shelves at local food bank

July 2, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The YMCA Emergency Child Care Centre reached out to the community on Wednesday (June 24) to help them fill the shelves at the Orangeville Food Bank.

The Centre, which operates out of Credit Meadows Elementary School in Orangeville, spent the day accepting food donations which will be donated to the food bank.

The Emergency Child Care Centre was created as a temporary measure to assist families who found themselves scrambling for a place for kids when the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in schools being closed.

“We are running a food drive today,” explained supervisor Christine Baxter. “We are partnering with the Orangeville Food Bank as well as the Shepherd’s Cupboard Food Bank in Shelburne. Our main focus is to provide support for our community.”

The YCMA Child Care Centre normally operates at the school, but when the pandemic hit, there was a need to help families who needed help when the schools closed. With parents still having to work, the Centre opened its doors for kids who needed daytime supervision.

“We’ve converted it to an emergency centre to respond to the need from front line and health care workers,” Ms. Baxter said. “The emergency child care centre was just for the purpose of the pandemic and being able to provide that support to health care workers and front line workers.

“We’ve had activities happening every day. It will be closing this Friday (June 26) and we hope to open the regular child care centre again on July 6. At this particular site we care for children from 18 months up to 12 years of age.”

As Centre workers and children at the centre greeted people in the parking lot, visitors drove in and dropped off their donations.

“The response to the food drive has been very positive,” Ms. Baxter said as the donation boxes started to fill up.

The YMCA also held the same food drive at their location at Centennial Hylands Elementary School in Shelburne.

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