The Boys & Girls Club of Cochrane & Area (BGCCA) will receive $75,000 in funding to continue to grow its Outreach support.

The grant was approved by the Calgary Foundation and means that BGCCA can bring in additional resources for Cochrane’s vulnerable youth and enhance its programming already in place. Two of the major areas of enhanced support include Cochrane’s homeless teen and youth LGBTQ2S+ population. 

Nola Hume, Youth and Volunteer Coordinator with The Club, says that people are often surprised to hear that we have a homeless population in Cochrane.

“We absolutely do, and the tricky part of it is that it doesn't appear the way it typically might in a bigger centre. Like Calgary, where you see, you know, adults, sleeping outside or pushing the shopping cart is the stereotypical thing and we don't see that. What we do have is a lot of teens who are in a home, and they're couch-surfing so maybe they're at a friend's house or maybe they don't even know the person all that well. They may have a roof over their head but they still have that daily stress of will I have somewhere to sleep tonight, and will I be able to have dinner tonight.”

The BGCCA’s teen space, The Club plans to address these issues, by prevention methods.

“If a family is struggling with their teenager to the point where that teen is wanting to leave, or perhaps the parents are thinking, the teen can't stay there anymore, our outreach worker can work with the teen. Then we can have a staff member working with the family so we have a nice wraparound service, and, hopefully, maintain that relationship and rebuild that so that the teen can remain at home if that's the safest solution.”

Currently, 80 per cent of the youth who attend The Club’s youth virtual programs identify as LGBTQ2S+, and Hume explains that they are finding it directly connected to teen homelessness in Cochrane and the surrounding area.

“There's a huge correlation there and a lot of times, when a teen talks to their parents and comes out that can cause a lot of stress in the family. If parents aren't accepting of it, or even if they just don't know how to accept and support this, then also, those teens are struggling too because they're facing more bullying and animosity at school so they're under a lot more stress.”

She says with this grant, they will be able to help so many LGBTQ2S+ youths.

"It increases the resources that we have on hand at The Club and social and gender-affirming supply so things like chest binders, we get a lot of questions asked for that.”

“Right now, we make sure if it's in our budget, then when we can find out that we can do this we have to order it and they have to wait and it might not fit and so it's a struggle because for a teen to get up the courage to come in and say, I need this piece of clothing or equipment to make me feel, you know, better in my skin. We want to help them right now, and we don't want to say okay but you have to wait three weeks. So, we're going to use some of those funds to have a stockpile of gender-affirming supplies on hand at The Club. So, when teens come in, we can help them right now.”

Hume continues by saying this grant is such a big win for Cochrane’s youth.

“When I was writing the grant, it felt so big and wasn't sure if this would, you know, happen for us and it did!  It's just absolutely wonderful because I know these kids. I know so many of the kids we work with and we care about them and we want to be able to know that we can help them even more now and it is just a wonderful feeling.”