West Island social services geared towards children received a $1.8-million donation from the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation Friday.
Two umbrella organizations, 123 Go Pierrefonds/Roxboro/DDO (which received $1.1 million) and Growing Together (which received $700,000) are the benefactors.
Growing Together coordinator Philippe Forté said the organization will use the money to identify areas where services are needed in the West Island and also fund networking activities for parents.
“What will improve is people are going to connect more, they will know more about what to do with their kids,” Forté said. “And when they come to our activities, we tell them what are the services on the territory because they don’t know where to go sometimes.”
Growing Together and 123 Go Pierrefonds/Roxboro/DDO also help fund community groups such as the West Island Association for the Intellectually Handicapped (WIAIH) and the Cloverdale Multi-Resources Family Centre.
Community groups do a lot to help people like Melanie Godon who has two children with autism and benefited from services offered at WIAIH’s Pat Robert’s Developmental Centre.
“We’re not on our own,” Godon said. “Even though the system is not here to help us, at least between all these organizations and parents, we can definitively have help and support.”
Godon said it’s services like Pat Roberts and WIAIH that make all the difference when raising children living with autism.
The money from the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation will last until 2020 and question marks remain as to what will happen after that.
“Who is going to take care of it?” Forté asked. “It has to be the community, so the city or the service de santé or the school.”
Comments