A new youth drop-in centre has opened in Liverpool.

The YMCA celebrated the grand opening of their Liverpool location at 40 Water Street on Monday.

The centre will be a place for youth to enjoy activities, access the internet, play video games, or talk with an outreach worker.

CEO of the Southwest chapter of the YMCA Yvonne Smith says they’ve just opened the doors and will begin a process to tailor the centre’s offerings to those of the community.

“Whenever we enter into a community, we absolutely want to engage with those who we’ll be serving. So, our first goal will be to work with youth to find out what their needs are, so we definitely want to ensure that they are part of the process, part of the planning, and you know, involved in all of it and they have been," said Smith. “So, even to the design of how you know centre will look we make sure that the youth have their input into that.”

Along with recreational activities the centre will also cooking programs and food to attendees.

Smith says the YMCA’s mandate is to provide services to the community, free of charge.

“One of the, you know, the commitments that we've made to youth programming in our communities is that they'll be barrier free. So, we ensure that there's not a fee to access,” said Smith. “And so to do so, we do, we turn over every stone and make sure that we access all the grants that are available, so it might be through community health boards and foundations, through United Way, through the province, through various grants, and we honestly probably have at any given time, you know, dozens and dozens of grants underway to make sure that we can financially support the work that we do.”

The drop-in was temporarily being run from the Liverpool Curling Club but Smith says they wanted a location of their own to provide more programming. The Water Street location was important to ensure students could walk from school and to other parts of town.

Smith says now that the YMCA has established themselves in Liverpool, they’ll be working with youth and other organizations to learn what service gaps they may be able to fill.

For information on programs and hours of operation head to the YMCA website.

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