FERGUS – Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) Centre Wellington is set to open “The Bee Hive” in mid-March.
The youth-centric space will provide unique services and programming just for young people.
“They want it to be bustling, they want it to be buzzing, they want things going on, they want to build their own community and they want it to be where they can get resources and flourish and so it felt like the Bee Hive was a great name for them,” said BBBS Centre Wellington executive director Kristen Drexler.
The push for BBBS to find a new space came in the fall of 2017 when the community lost six males to suicide within two and a half months.
“They say that when one dies by suicide, it touches at least 10 people in a very deep way – parents, siblings, coaches, friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in our small community we don’t go too far often times,” Drexler said.
“Our board realized we need to do something different, like we need to serve differently. We are one service of many that can help … build a more resilient youth generation.”
She said the community cannot always depend on the government to solve all of its problems.
“We have to figure out what can I do, what can we do, what can this organization do, to change the narrative here and if that means that we’re doing more than we’re expected to do, I’m okay with that because it’s emotionally not sustainable.
“It just spurs more sadness, more depression more anxiety, more fear.”
The organization needed a space to accommodate new programs. Enter the Skyline Community Hub.
The space is located in the old Target building on Tower Street South between Habitat for Humanity and Mark’s in the Skyline Group of Companies building.
“We recognized a need in Fergus and we had some available space that we thought would be ideal,” said Jason Ashdown, co-founder and chief operating officer of Skyline.
“The problem was that it’s kind of an ‘if you build it they will come’ kind of scenario.”
The group ensured all of the necessary facilities were in place, like washrooms in the common areas, to reduce the stress on organizations considering the space.
“The idea was really meant to develop and deliver a space kind of working backwards,” Ashdown said.
“Like how cheaply can we make it for these groups to work out of this location? So we never created this space to be profitable. So we were creating this space to basically break even and we’ve invested in the space with our money to at least attract the tenants that we think should be there.”
All Skyline partners live in the Fergus area and are choosing to raise their children in the township.
“The community has given a lot to us over the time that we’ve lived there,” Ashdown said. “I went to high school [in Fergus] and all of us have raised our families there.
“And through that we’ve seen lots of things happening in the community that need attention and we’re just trying to fill that void.”
The business owns numerous apartment complexes in Fergus and Centre Wellington, Ashdown explained.
“We’ve always been a big advocate that strong communities are a great place to run a business and so we’re always looking for ways to help support the people that make our business happen, which is essentially our tenants, and it’s through situations like this that we can do that,” he said.
BBBS then created the Youth Action Committee in the summer of 2019.
“We want to get to all youth, not just youth who want to come out and change the world, which is fantastic,” stated BBBS Centre Wellington youth engagement coordinator Wendy Douglas.
“We have a lot of those youth, but we want to get to youth who don’t always have their voice heard and who can come and enjoy being on the committee and feel their voice is heard, even if they don’t talk.”
Some of the programs planned for the Bee Hive include cooking classes, sewing classes, tutoring classes and artistic classes.
“Anything that they can come and be creative and let their voice out that way has been huge,” Douglas said.
For cooking classes Douglas said one option will be the six by 16 program where kids learn how to cook six basic dishes, with six ingredients, by the time they’re 16.
“So they can come for six different classes and they’ll learn how to cook those basic things,” she said. “We’ll reach out to different chefs in the community that can come and work with them.”
To help kids access the Bee Hive’s programs, Drexler said the Ontario Trillium Foundation has provided funding for the youth programs, including taxi chits.
“The idea is to bring them here to participate in the programs we have,” Drexler said. “Let’s get a bunch of kids after school coming here … and then we just get RideWell (the county rideshare program) to bring all of them and then bring them home so that parents don’t have to worry about it.”
The Youth Action Committee, which consists of 10 to 15 youths, is also working on a program called Adulting 101, an initiative funded by RBC and the Centre Wellington Community Foundation for $15,000.
The program consists of 10 sessions with topics from domestic skills, mechanics and hair dressing to financial information and orientation and gender identification, Douglas said.
The sessions will run over 10 weeks with meals offered at each session. What will be included in the 10 sessions has been decided and Douglas is now working on finding people to facilitate each of the sessions.
The present plan is to have an Adulting 101 session in the spring and another in the fall.
The Bee Hive will also host Friday Night Youth Nights.
In the bigger board room, “They’ll have something louder and movie nights, maybe some live music,” Douglas said.
“And then in the smaller rooms more quiet activities so that they can bring all the youth together, so that the youth that are a little bit more reserved might not go to a louder event.”
In addition to the Bee Hive, the space at the Skyline Community Hub is also the new home for BBBS Centre Wellington.
There are various rooms that BBBS Centre Wellington can use for its programs.
There’s a Muskoka-themed room with Adirondack chairs and Astroturf; a room with hanging chairs that are good for kids who are anxious, and another room that will have tables and chairs that will seat eight people and can be used for a sewing night or other activities requiring a more intimate setting.
On top of that there is a boardroom and offices for all the BBBS staff and a kitchen for youth to use for all their programs.
Community space
Drexler explained the Bee Hive is a space that the entire community contributed to through donations in time and expertise and deep discounts on supplies.
The Centre Wellington community came together to create the space.
Now the Bee Hive is a place where youth will feel safe and will also have a place to talk to trusted adults and even counselors about anything – even how to manage their money or whether to get a credit card.
The Skyline Community Hub is also the home of Family Counselling and Support Services with 8,000 square feet still available from the original 13,000ft2.
Ashdown explained all of the tenants will be community-based organizations.
“We’re looking for groups that would offer community-based services on a variety of levels to satisfy the greatest needs for the community,” Ashdown said.
He doesn’t yet know what that will look like, but he said he will consult with professionals and ensure all the organizations fit together.
BBBS will be hosting a community open house for its new space on March 14 from 10am to 1pm.
Skyline will be hosting an open house for the entire space on May 22.
