Old Benny Library to become home of N.D.G. youth centre
The location is great. The rent is free. And the move to the former Benny Library will give N.D.G. youth community centre Head and Hands much more space to do its work.
“This is just a win, win, win,” said Russell Copeman, mayor of the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough. The 10-year rent-free lease agreement gives renewed purpose to the site, which has been vacant since the Benny Library moved to its new digs on Monkland Ave. in February 2016.
“It’s a win for the borough, it’s a win for Head and Hands, and it is a win for the community,” Copeman said.
Richenda Gazette, director of fundraising and development for Head and Hands, said the move will bring the community organization closer to its most vulnerable clients.
“As gentrification moves further west on Sherbrooke (in N.D.G.), a lot of our clients are being pushed further west,” Gazette said. “We are getting closer to the people we serve on a daily basis, which is really important to us.”
The non-profit organization helps more than 4,000 youths per year, most of them from N.D.G. It offers a range of services, including a medical clinic, legal counselling, mental health services, a food pantry, street work, sex education and guidance for safer drug use.
The move will also bring the organization closer to some key services, including the N.D.G. Food Depot, which is slated to move nearby, to Somerled Ave., by Oct. 2.
But there’s a hitch. The building on Benny Ave. is a nearly 70-year-old chapel. Transforming the space into a youth centre will require a lot of renovation work.
Head and Hands will pay for those renovations out of pocket and will need funds to pay for the building’s maintenance, heat and electricity over the 10-year period. With about $750,000 required to finance the renovations and the move, Head and Hands is gearing up for a full-scale, two-year fundraising campaign that will officially kick off in January.
“This feels like the beginning of a transformative moment for us because we are heading toward our 50th anniversary,” Head and Hands director Andrea Clarke said.
“Being able to be in a space like this and not having to pay rent on any of our sites gives us the potential for the sustainability and the longevity that will see us through another 50 years as an organization,” she said.
The new space will have a full kitchen, extra storage, five bathrooms, total handicap accessibility, soundproof walls for confidentiality and window-lined offices. That’s a big step up for an organization that has, for more than a decade, been housed in a tight, twofloor retail space on Sherbrooke St. W. that lacked accessibility, natural light and soundproofing.
This type of deal is not common, Copeman said, noting that usually non-profit groups are expected to pay monthly rental fees.
However, Copeman concluded, Head and Hands is an “essential organization in our community and, for us to be able to give them use of the building for 10 years at virtually no charge is just one way we can help them do their great work.”