The Sudbury Community Service Centre celebrated its 50th birthday Dec. 15 with a bash at a local hotel.
If you’ve never heard of the local agency, which is funded by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, it provides developmental services to assist adults diagnosed with a developmental disability to live independently in the community.
The agency also provides a financial empowerment program for low-income individuals to help them with things like filing tax returns, applying for government subsidies and benefits and providing support to get identification.
Commenting on the agency’s 50th anniversary, executive director Kevin Cooper said he thinks it’s “amazing.”
“I've been here for 31 years, so I've sort of grown up in the agency,” he said.
“I got to know pretty much most of the people who come through the doors. I've actually worked most of the positions that are here. It's just very much a family atmosphere in the way that people support each other and are dedicated.”
Cooper said the agency’s 45 staff support about 600 people every year in the developmental services program and “tens of thousands” in the financial empowerment program.
He said from what he read, the Sudbury Community Service Centre started out “very small,” with a budget of $8,000 for the year, relying heavily on donations from churches.
The services it has provided over the years has evolved.
“In the beginning, we actually provided services for family and individual counselling, and we also provided some supports for people who wanted to access unemployment insurance, and family benefits,” Cooper said.
“And then we sort of made a foray into a number of different areas, including developmental services. So for the first two decades, on family counselling and credit counselling. Over the last two decades, we've actually shifted that focus and we're actually working more with developmental disabilities, and people of low-income people, for homeless people or who live in Indigenous communities.”
The 50th anniversary celebration was attended by the area’s two MPPs, Jamie West and France Gélinas.
Gélinas said she’s a “big fan” of the agency. She said constituents often come to her because they’re having trouble accessing government services.
“Whenever I send them to you, the response is always the same — ‘They helped me, they were so kind, the problem is solved and they continued to support me.’
“I cannot tell you how fortunate we are to have the centre in our community. Our community would be very different and life would be really different for many many people if it was not for the hard work that you do each and every day.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s associate content editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
