The Yukon Family Literacy Centre has found a new home on Front Street in downtown Whitehorse.
The organization recently moved from the Canada Games Centre (CGC) after it was given a notice that its 12-year tenure at the Games Centre would end Nov. 10.
While it transitions to its new location, it is operating out of its usual summer location at the Pioneer Hotel at Shipyards Park until Dec. 15. It will open its new location in January, 2024.
Literacy centre program director Carrie-Anne McPhee said staff are really excited and looking forward to the opening of the new space.
The new location will open in January and offer the same kind of programming it offered at the CGC with the same operating hours.
“The plans are actually coming together now, but it is still under development with furniture and blinds being installed on the windows,” she said. “We will have our same signature programs that people know and love. So all the things you loved about the old family literacy centre will remain—the same services with the same experiences.”
McPhee said the space will continue to be “that safe, warm, free space for you to come and play with your kids and enjoy our programs and read books and have snacks.”
She said after the notice to vacate the CGC site was issued, the organization spent a lot of time searching for a new location for the fall and winter programming.
“It was quite a big change for us and for the community to move out of that old space and it is right in the CGC. If you have young children and you live in the Yukon, especially if you live in Whitehorse, you know that you spend half of your winter at the CGC because your kids are either in hockey practice or you have swimming lessons or what have you.”
The new space, she said, is preferable for many reasons.
“The old space at the CGC had no windows, but a big concrete room. That was the major downside to it. This new space is a big, beautiful open space with huge windows. It’s just so bright and full of light. It’s just gorgeous. So that’s one real major addition that’s going to be so great for families.”
She said the new space has many advantages, including that it’s right downtown and accessible to parks.
“There’s like a little skating rink at the park there so you can go for a play at the park, go for a skate and then come over and warm up and have a cup of coffee.”
McPhee also said the literacy centre will now have its own washrooms in the new space.
“We’ve got this great big, kind of, quiet reading area that we’re able to set up with really comfortable furniture, that’ll be kind of separate from the bigger play area. So that’s nice, too.”
She told the News there will be other opportunities in the space which will be more of a multi-use community space that will be used for other initiatives and projects.
“We are not totally sure what that will look like yet. But it will be like a family literacy centre by day, and then have other things going on by night. So there will be other stuff happening there. That wasn’t really the case before.”
The centre falls under the Yukon Literacy Coalition’s operations which offers a variety of programming and projects, including teaching youth employment skills and training with young kids in the community.
The coalition’s staff members also offer financial literacy sessions where staff go to schools, community halls and more throughout the territory to teach residents how to read paycheques, use money and other financial skills.
Another service that runs annually through the literacy centre is called the family literacy project.
“So what the family literacy project does is that we provide families in the Yukon opportunities to learn together through play and we do that in lots of different ways. We had the Family Literacy Centre, which was a big play space, a big educational space upstairs at the CGC where you would just drop in with your kids. We would do a painting program or stories or cooking, we did all kinds of stuff.”
She said the family literacy project runs every summer in partnership with the City of Whitehorse.
Mark Steudle, a program coordinator at the coalition, said the space at the CGC will be missed as it was a hub recognized in the community.
“Hopefully we have the same kind of rapport with the community like we did in the CGC,” he said. “We expect to see the same number of people like the old space. One thing the CGC offered was that there were already people in the location. We are not quite sure what to expect, but we expect to see a dip in numbers while everyone transitions into the new space. It’s going to be a lot of change not only for the community but for us as well. We are excited to see what the new space offers.”
Contact Patrick Egwu at patrick.egwu@yukon-news.com
