ESTEVAN - The Estevan Public Youth Centre will welcome its first patrons on Oct. 8.
The youth programming for the first month has been announced. They will start off with a board game night at the Estevan Leisure Centre, to be held in two sessions for Grades 7-8 and Grades 9-12. There will be various games available and EPYC will also do their best to meet the interests of the youths that will want to participate.
"It feels really great to finally start seeing some of our plans and some of our ambition starting to come together. It's a really good feeling to see it all happen," said EPYC executive director Juli Dzuba.
They based their program offering on the results of A survey, as well as on the resources they had, and keeping in mind that they don't have a permanent facility at this time. They released the general schedule for October, and more details are to come soon.
"The general calendar that is out right now is broad, just so that people have an idea of what's going to happen for the month. But each week, we will release a more specific outline of what each week's programming is going to entail. So just be aware of that. And you can look at our social media sites for those things," Dzuba said.
Moving forward, they plan to adjust their programming for youth depending on their preferences and interests, as well as volunteer availability.
All October youth nights will be held at the leisure centre, where EPYC is renting one of the rooms.
"To make it easy, we'll just have EPYC signage up and you just come to the leisure centre, follow the signs and you can find us," Dzuba said.
On Oct. 15, EPYC is to hold an open art night, where they'll have a variety of supplies available for youth to come and create some art.
Starting in mid-October, sessions will be held both on Friday and Saturday.
"We will be offering programming on Friday and Saturday nights in the future. Ideally, as we grow, we would like to expand into other nights during the week and eventually some after-school programming as well," Dzuba said.
On Oct. 22, EPYC will offer a gratitude journaling activity. Oct. 23 will see a movie night. On Oct. 29, patrons will have a chance to partake in a Halloween Minute to Win It game, and on Oct. 30 a gym games night will be offered, with Halloween costumes encouraged both days. Dzuba gave more details on some programs.
"For gratitude journaling night, we are going to have journals available and we're going to discuss what gratitude journaling is, what it looks like, more guidelines around how to participate in gratitude thinking and interacting in that sort of way. And then the youth will be able to fill out their journals and then to take it home with them," Dzuba said.
"For the Minute to Win It game, it's just a fun night for youth to get together and to practice some different games … revolved around speed and trying to accomplish tasks quickly. We'll do it in teams. And it's all just for fun."
No pre-registration is needed to partake in activities, and the space will allow for distancing. Youth can drop in for all or any night.
"It's more so focused on giving youth the opportunity to engage with other youth in the community on nights that maybe they don't have anything else going on," Dzuba noted.
The most recent updates can be found on EPYC social media pages. If someone wants to volunteer with EPYC, they can contact Dzuba at 306-421-3134.
