Moorelands celebrates a century of community service.
Youngsters taking part in a 1912 program offered by Moorelands swim at Sunnyside Beach. The community service organization celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
Photo/COURTESY
Along one of the walls at Moorelands Community Services, black and white photographs of children and their mothers from 1918 until now adorn the wall. In one photo, many children and their mothers wait at a bus stop to go to camp for the summer. In other photos, children are swimming, having picnics, canoeing or putting on plays.
Today, a decade of photographs for the 21st century feature excited kids ready to jump into a lake, a parachute toss, cooking outdoors and kayaking. For 100 years, these are the kids of Moorelands, both past and present.
Founded in 1912, Moorelands Community Services is a Toronto-based non-profit working with low-income urban children. Based out of the Davisville Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road area, Moorelands is currently embarking on its 100th year.
"We've been around for 100 years and we're probably the best kept secret in Toronto," according to Marla Green, development and outreach at the organization.
Green explained that Moorelands is not well known in Toronto, but despite being around for 100 years, they are still true to their original goal of helping the city's most vulnerable children and families.
Moorelands has been working with Toronto's children and youth affected by poverty since 1912.
Originally called the Downtown Workers' Association, Canon R.J. Moore, an Anglican minister, founded the organization to help the poor families living in downtown Toronto.
Moore and his volunteers designed and ran programs that provided the basic necessities of life for these families such as health care, food and clothing.
According to Patricia Jacobs, executive director, the organization went through many transitions to meet any social, economic or recreational needs -by adapting to the needs of a changing society.
"About 15 years ago, when the organization decided to specifically focus on children and youth, I think it was an understanding that when you make the difference in the life of a child, you make a difference in the life of a family and in a life of a community for generations and that's where we still are 15 years later, working with kids," she said.
Jacobs said the charity is not high profile because it spends most of its resources "tackling problems."
However, since the organization has been around for 100 years and due to high demand, it wants to open more programs and expand to serve more kids.
Moorelands City Programs are delivered in Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park, which are high-density neighbourhoods with limited resources for children.
The subsidized programs offered are after-school programs running in five schools in Thorncliffe and Flemingdon. In addition to after-school programs, Moorelands delivers a youth leadership program and a summer day camp in Flemingdon Park and a wilderness camp in Northern Ontario where children can enjoy a week of fun activities.
"We offer an amazing balance of programs that include educational programming, physical activities, science teaching, arts and crafts, nutrition, homework, cooking, field trips and fun," Jacobs said.
She emphasized that Moorelands has an "evidence-based" approach guiding their programs.
"We look at the studies that have been done on child development in the best ways to make positive outcomes possible for low-income children," she said.
Jacobs emphasized that the programs are more than just fun activities for children and youth; they are designed to model important skills for children and youth.
"We're not just throwing programs at kids, we're just not saying 'come have fun'," she said. "Fun is great, fun is important. But, for us, it's a way of helping adolescence and adulthood and ultimately is going to prepare them for a much happier life."
For the future, Green says Moorelands wants to be around for 100 more years and will continue to seek support from the community to continue their work.
Moorelands is supported largely by foundations and individuals.
For more information: visit www.moorelands.ca or call Patricia Jacobs, executive director: 416.466.9987 ext 308.
The administrative office of Moorelands Community Services is located at 250 Merton St, Suite 501 located at Mt. Pleasant Road and Davisville Avenue.