It was a big challenge: to raise $160,000 in 16 weeks.
But on Monday, Aug. 11, the Sea to Sky Community Services (SSCS) announced it was a large step closer to creating its $8 million downtown community services hub – Centrepoint. The community pulled together to surpass the services’ goal by more than $23,000.
“The campaign finished on a strong note, with a very generous $30,000 donation from Garibaldi Springs Golf Resort,” said Estelle Taylor, Sea to Sky’s capital campaign co-ordinator. “It’s been a great community phase of fundraising and we’re so pleased with how it’s gone.”
Centrepoint will be built at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Victoria Street. The project marks a partnership between the service and the Squamish United Church, which donated the land. The two bodies are running separate fundraisers for the different components of the building.
Sea to Sky Community Services needs to raise $3 million to get shovels in the ground. The organization is in discussions with potential donors, Taylor told the Squamish Chief.
“With a bit more support over the next few months, we’ll hit our overall fundraising target,” she said.
“Soon, Centrepoint will be open, helping community groups, children, families and adults from around the corridor.”
The project’s building committee is in discussion around start dates for the development. Once built, the facility will include affordable housing, community rooms, a preschool, programming rooms and office space.
The project also includes the construction of a new church for Squamish United.
SSCS offers more than 40 programs helping approximately 4,000 people annually, in areas ranging from child development to counselling and addiction recovery.
The centre will consolidate some of SSCS’s 13 different facilities throughout the Sea to Sky Corridor, saving the society money and increasing service efficiency, SSCS’s executive director Lois Wynne told the Squamish Chief at the onset of the project. The society currently spends $200,000 a year on rent in four different downtown locations, she noted.
