Streams Hub awarded $18,000 through charitable fund

Written By Sam Odrowski

Streams Community Hub, a local youth-focused arts charity, has been awarded $18,000 through the first-ever Greenwood Family Fund. 

Streams co-founders Juli-Anne and Andrew James were presented with a cheque on Monday (Jan. 31) from Dufferin Community Foundation president Gord Gallaugher and executive director Michele Fisher. 

“This is extremely significant,” said Juli-Anne James. “We're a small, relatively young grassroots charity and we're in a period of growth so this funding is going to go a really long way in terms of helping us to deliver on our mission to ignite learning, inspire youth, and enrich the community.” 

Launched in the summer of 2017, Streams Community Hub has been running seasonal programs for youth across Dufferin County focused on a variety of art disciplines that span music, theatre performance, filming and photography, visual arts, cooking and more. 

After years of running on a seasonal bases, the organization announced in July of 2021 that they would be opening their first permanent location, a 3,600 square foot facility located at 305 Col. Phillips Dr. in Shelburne., meaning they would be able to provide art programs year-round. 

Speaking with the Free Press, Juli-Anne said the new funding will go towards supporting the move to year-round programming, specifically the costs for class facilitators and supplies. 

With the move to a permanent home, Streams will be opening more programs for youth in the community. One new aspect will be a social enterprise called Town Tees, which will teach youth about graphic design, product creation, and merchandising. 

“Our goal with [Town Tees] is to give kids the opportunity for first job experience,” explained Andrew. 

Other new programs Streams is looking to implement include after school programming, day-time programming to support remote learners and homeschooled children, and weekend programming to open the hub space up for community activities. 

“Particularly in rural areas art curriculum is very basic and not necessarily led by the creativity of the kids. For us the significance of this facility is having a creative place where kids can come and feel free to explore different facets of the arts, and discover themselves. We want to aim to make this a very child led, youth led creative process, place, and community,” said Juli-Anne. 

While the funding is a significant boost for Streams Community Hub, the grant also marks an important milestone for Dufferin Community Foundation as it is the first-ever grant awarded through the Greenwood Family Fund. 

“Our purpose is to build permanently invested funds, so they earn money that we can then give away to charities. For us this is a big day because we were able to do what we've set out to do,” said Gord Gallaugher, president of DCF.  

The Greenwood Family Fund was established in 2020 by the Greenwood family as part of Dufferin Community Foundation's donor-advised fund program. The grant was created with a focus on learning enrichment for children and youth, especially for families living in poverty. 

Working together, the Greenwood family and Dufferin Community Foundation reviewed program offerings from local youth-serving organizations, with Streams Community Hub standing out amongst
the others. 

“One of the things that we care about as a family is helping young people learn and experience new things that will shape their futures,” said Greenwood family member Amie Zukowski. “Streams Community Hub is a place where kids from every walk of life can pick up an instrument or a camera or paint brush and get really creative.”

Dufferin Community Foundation by 2023 will have three donor-advised funds that will be able to provide local organizations with funding.

“Having worked in many charities during my time, I can say that it's very tough to find funding and to get funding for all of the programs you want to do,” said Michele Fisher, executive director of DCF. “Each of these funds as they come to maturity and we have grants, we're going to be able to fund many more programs across Dufferin County; it's going to be a real boost for our non-profits.” 

Construction in well underway at the Streams Community Hub facility with a tentative opening date set for March 7.