Mothers’ Centre struggling to stay open

A safe space for new mothers to learn breastfeeding, talk about the baby blues and practise some handy skills is in jeopardy as grant rules change and funding cuts to the Saskatoon Health Region trickle down to community programs.

Jasmyn Marshall’s second child was just a couple of months old when Jasmyn began volunteering as a peer breastfeeding mentor and hostess at the Mothers’ Centre at Station 20 West.

Once a week, she welcomes mothers and children to the gathering space at the core neighbourhood non-profit agency. “It’s just nice to have a safe, welcoming place to go to when I want to get out of the house for a little bit, where the kids can play and there’s other mothers. You don’t get a lot of that when you’re home with your children,” Marshall said.

Funding for the centre is precarious since the Saskatoon Health Region indicated it will stop paying the Mothers’ Centre’s rent as of the end of this month, said board chair Marjorie Beaucage.

The health region leases space for some of its programs at Station 20 West — including, for the past five years, the Mothers’ Centre as it “worked towards becoming a financially sustainable community organization” — but it “does not have an ongoing commitment to provide funding to the Saskatoon Mothers’ Centre,” spokesperson Amanda Purcell wrote in an email recently.

Station 20 West may be able to reduce the Mothers’ Centre’s rent for a few months while it establishes a new revenue source, but the facility itself needs to be sustainable and pay its own bills, said co-manager Len Usiskin.