One Trailblazing Year

Peel CAS’s Trailblazers Youth Centre is celebrating its first anniversary on August 31! It’s been an amazing first year for this innovative youth success initiative. The centre has hosted 80 programs on topics ranging from financial management and job skills, to sports and recreation, to arts and culture.

The centre strives to offer a safe, supportive, and fun environment for young people to find a sense of belonging and connect them to the resources they need to develop and grow. With 943 registrations to date, and great feedback from the youth, we are well on our way to achieving that goal.

Nine-year-old Devon* described his feelings about a Trailblazers program: “I like coming to programs because I made friends and learnt new things like asking more questions and I get to share here.  I also got better at basketball.  My dad got to come with me to a basketball game because of this program and that made me happy.”

Fourteen-year-old Halima* said she learned a lot from the Internet Safety class and got to experience being a camp counselor, which she feels will help prepare her for her future career. She also loved the cooking program: “Even though I was scared the food would have been bad I still tried the recipes and experimented with certain flavors and stepped out of my comfort zone and because of that the food turned out really well. I feel as if the [Trailblazers Youth] Centre programs have impacted me in many ways and taught me stuff, I have never expected I would have needed to know.”

The Trailblazers Youth Centre depends on our community partners to provide many of our programs and services. We are grateful for their contributions toward improving the lives of the young people we work with. Special thanks to MLSE, Raptors 905, Peel Regional Police, PDSB & DPCDSB, Safe City of Mississauga, YMCA, Indus, Roots, Jays Care, Job, Skills, Lorne Park Hockey, Free For All, Polycultural Immigration Centre, City of MIssissauga, and the Nicholas Ramdeyall  Foundation.

This summer, Toronto Maple Leafs selected Peel CAS to be one of five organizations to be part of their House of Hockey Ball Hockey league in collaboration with Justin Bieber's Drew House sponsored by Tim Hortons. This is an amazing opportunity for Trailblazers youth to access free hockey training and equipment, right here at our centre.

Together, we are helping to transform youth support in Ontario. We have accomplished a great deal in our first year and look forward to even bigger and better things to come in the years ahead. Check out this video retrospective on our exciting first year!