Ribbon cutting
Carizon agency opens new Kitchener location
KITCHENER — Carizon Family and Community Services cut the ribbon on a new office in Kitchener on Thursday, and the agency also unveiled a new tag line.
The new location is on Westmount Road East in the heart of the Chandler-Mowat neighbourhood, where Carizon already has been delivering multiple programs.
The program helps youth in low-income communities graduate from high school and transition into post-secondary education or training by addressing systemic barriers to education to lower dropout rates.
“It’s pretty exciting to be in the neighbourhood,” said chief executive officer Tracy Elop.
Before, students had to make the trek to the Queen Street South location, or programs and tutoring were provided in school, such as English language classes.
“There are now opportunities to bring smaller groups of students into our site to work on really important skills,” Elop said.
And the new location, at the corner of Westmount Road and Ottawa Street, is more accessible to the Pathways to Education students in the Chandler-Mowat and Kingsdale neighbourhoods.
While Carizon operates out of five offices, its wide range of services is delivered throughout the region in schools, community centres, churches, and community partner facilities.
Adding the Westmount Road location also opened room in its Queen Street South headquarters, which allowed the Child and Youth Advocacy Centre to move in.
That’s a good fit with the Family Violence Project of Waterloo Region, also located in the building. Both serve victims of abuse. “The great synergies between those two collaboratives can be realized,” Elop said. “It really has been a win-win all around.”
On Thursday, Carizon also revealed its new tag line: “Inspiring Hope and Wellness in Our Community.”
The search for a tag line started with the realization the community needed help to understand what Carizon is all about, which is providing therapeutic, supportive and preventive programs.
Carizon came out of the 2013 amalgamation of two long-standing community organizations: Mosaic Counselling and Family Services and kidsLink. But the name Carizon is a new name to the region, with many asking what the organization does.
“There’s not a great recognition of what Carizon means,” Elop said.
She realized that when she came to the organization a year ago.
Many people she told about her new position weren’t familiar with Carizon and all the good it did in the region, she said.
“What we are about is people and community,” Elop said.