With the provincial government wanting to see community commitment to building a new children’s treatment center in Chatham-Kent, a local family has stepped up.
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The Cathy and Rob Myers Foundation has donated $1 million to the Butterfly Building Campaign, which will cover the cost of equipment, furniture and fixtures for a new, nearly 55,000-square-foot (5,110-square-meter) facility to replace the current Children’s Treatment Center of Chatham-Kent.
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The province has pledged more than $20 million to build the new center on McNaughton Avenue West in Chatham.
Rob Myers, chief executive of RM Sotheby’s, said the family donation will help the center continue to help children and their parents.
“My wife and I have been fortunate enough to raise two healthy, intelligent children with little stress,” he said
Having seen the challenges facing parents of children with disabilities, “I think how blessed that my wife and I have been in that we haven’t had to deal with that,” he added.
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Daughter Jessica Myers said one of her children came to the center for speech therapy and a lot of her friends have brought their children for various services.
“This facility supports one in five families in the community, so it obviously helps a lot of people in a lot of different ways,” she said.
“There’s so many different offerings here,” from speech and music therapy to a therapy pool, she added. “It’s a great facility for the community.”
The donation brings the Children’s Treatment Center Foundation of Chatham-Kent’s Butterfly Building Campaign to $9.5 million of its $10 million goal.
“We are making great strides and are about asking the community to help us over the finish line,” said foundation chairperson Kevin Owen. “The Myers family have really given us the boost we need to get this project done.”
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“Every day, the need grows for this new, expanded and modernized CTC facility as our waiting lists get longer,” said foundation president Mike Genge.
“The Myers family is aware of this need and have strongly supported our efforts in the past,” he added. “This is another significant gesture that shows how much they want to help our kids with special needs.”
Rob Myers said Mayor Darrin Canniff brought him to the treatment center about four or five years ago to meet some of the families served when there was talk of building a new facility.
Myers pledged that when the project got going, “we will do our part in helping this community out.”
With construction expected to start soon, he figured now was a good time to donate to the project “to get rolling, get people excited.”
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Children’s treatment center executive director Donna Litwin-Makey said donors have shown the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services “that our community is behind us and they always make that an expectation.”
Setting a firm date for construction will help generate more donations, she expects.
Companies are pre-qualifying to bid to be the general contractor for the project with the request for proposals expected to go out next month.
“We hope if all goes to current schedule prediction, (the new building) would be done by the end of 2025,” Litwin-Makey said.
While a lot of things are coming together for the project, she said a true picture of the final cost is expected when the project goes out for bids.
The current center is bursting at the seams, serving more than 5,000 families with waiting lists for many services.
Litwin-Makey said the new center will be about twice the size of the current facility. She added it will have larger pool to provide better accessibility along with new amenities, such as a large gymnasium, group rooms, a purpose-built music room and a teen area for life-skills programs.
Noting some services are provided at other locations, which is less efficient, Litwin-Makey said a new facility “will definitely allow us to do a lot of things in the center” and see more kids.
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