Community room ushers in new era at Scarborough highrise.
Shantel Marquardt performs at the opening of the 400 McCowan Ave. Rec Room restoration project. A joint venture with Youthlink and Home Depot organized local youth to help paint and restore the room for summer programs.
Staff photo/DAN PEARCE
More than a room, it's almost like a new beginning.
For years there was a dance studio on the ground floor of 400 McCowan Rd., but it was in bad shape. It had broken chairs, holes in walls, a broken door frame and light fixtures.
Five months ago, a group of youth from the Toronto Community Housing highrise and nearby townhouses started to fix it up.
With help from the local Home Depot, which donated supplies, they repaired, plastered and repainted the room a bright yellow.
Now, with the work done David Wesley, 20, and the others look forward to seeing it used for much more.
"People are taking it a lot more seriously. Everyone wants to see what's going to happen with what we've done," said Wesley, a lifelong resident of the building near Eglinton Avenue East, as members of the group enjoyed pizza and cake with other residents recently.
"Makes you feel like sort of a role model, almost."
Already, the place is home to parenting and cooking programs. YouthLink, a social service agency, is also scheduling a weekly percussion group and guest speakers.
Kim Wesley, the building's tenant representative, hopes these activities will "snowball" and keep young people off the street.
The building, where arrests were made in 2009 during an anti-gang sweep called Project Fusion, is known to Toronto police for the wrong reasons, she said.
"They think trouble. They never think something good," said Kim Wesley, but added years of bad news for 400 McCowan had to change, and the room's revival is a step in right direction.
In September, Youthlink hopes to open a youth lounge in a room next door.
Terrill Williams-Brown, 17, another volunteer teen on the work crew, was looking forward to the motivational speakers. He used to live in the building and is going to college next year, but said he wants to come back and help the community.
"It was all beat down before," Williams-Brown recalled, saying the renovation "shows that there are some serious youth here who actually want to learn things."