Centennial students leave lasting legacy on Pape

Centennial students leave lasting legacy on Pape. Danielle Battaglia, left, and Nessa Downey join fellow Centennial College students in some renovation work at the Pape Adolescent Resource Centre (PARC) on Thursday. Around 80 people from the college's Child and Youth Work program spent the day revitalizing the centre using the $15,000 they raised for the project. The students purchased new furniture, appliances, computers and supplies to overhaul the house. PARC is a resource centre that helps to prepare children from the child welfare system for independence. (April 21, 2011) Photo/MATTHEW SHERWOOD

The graduating students selected the east end centre as the beneficiary of their final project. They were there on Thursday, April 21, painting, decorating with new furniture, installing new computers and even donating new appliances to the kitchen.

The 80 third-year students were divided up into groups in class and each group had to build an agency that would partner up with a real agency in the community.

The 12 groups made presentations to the class about a project to benefit each of the real agencies and the students voted on which project would be the one selected for the final project.

Courtney Dorion's group was the one that selected PARC.

"We picked PARC because a couple of us work in some of the children's aid group homes," she said, adding they're always talking about what PARC does for them and how it needed a bit of a face lift.

"They love hanging out here and coming here," Dorion said. "It's a worthwhile cause."

PARC is operated jointly by the Children's Aid Society of Toronto, Catholic Children's Aid, and Jewish Family and Child Service of Toronto as a resource centre for youth as they transition out of care.

"We offer a place where people can network with each other and we have peers mentoring peers," said George McClure, an adolescent centre worker.

Libanos Yehualashet is another of the Centennial students who was helping out at PARC. She wasn't in Dorion's group, but thought the organization was most worthy for their final project.

"I just found it more interesting...They could use more things...I thought why not help out the community," she said.

The students had to do all of the planning for the project and all of the fundraising. They began with a goal of $5,000 and surpassed that by raising more than $15,000 through a pub night, barbecue and soliciting donations.

The students from Centennial's Progress Campus in Scarborough had never done a project of this scale, in the past they had worked in the smaller groups to do projects for a number of agencies.

"We thought it was important for the third year students to come together for a common goal," said Amy Gaudaur, one of their faculty members.

She said the project also spoke to the collaborative nature of the work child and youth workers do, which prepares the students for the workforce as they graduate.

"The intent behind the project was to help the students understand how important it was to give back to the community," said Deb Matthews-Phinney, the other faculty member involved.

PARC was happy to welcome the students, youth who use the facility were on hand manning the barbecue to feed the Centennial volunteers and they spun some tunes to provide music to make the painting and cleaning more enjoyable.

"It's great to have the youth here working with the students and seeing the care that's put in," McClure said. "It means a lot for the place to be renovated and painted...By having the community support us it takes away from the stigma that children's aid is not a good place."

The students enjoyed it.

"It's been great. It's been a fun day," said Dorion.

There were some mixed emotions as they hung mirrors and plugged in computers - completely transforming PARC's main hangout area in the basement - as this was the last time project before graduation.

"I's the last time we're all going to spend together," Yehualashet said.