The Mount Dennis Aboriginal Child and Family Centre to open its doors in Toronto

By Rick Garrick

TORONTO — The Mount Dennis Aboriginal Child and Family Centre in Toronto is looking forward to opening its doors for services in early August after celebrating its virtual grand opening on June 21. Staff at the Native Child and Family Services of Toronto’s new multi-service centre, which is located at 1290 Weston Road in York, have been providing virtual programming and some programming on the land at a nearby park during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic.

“We’ve been given the green light to actually open the doors and have people come inside, and that’s going to happen pretty soon,” says Reta Red Sky Hamlin, supervisor at the Mount Dennis Aboriginal Child and Family Centre. “We’re just working on a few of the policies and some of the health and safety requirements that has to happen and then we will be able to actually host people inside.”

The centre is designed to provide a range of services, including an EarlyON program, Kiiwednong Aboriginal Head Start program, youth programming and Elder/Senior wellness programs.

“So we would be offering programs basically from zero years to senior,” Hamlin says. “We go based by what their needs are — we have monthly community council meetings and at those meetings, the community will let us know what the input is for the programming, give us all the feedback and let us know what they want to see in future programming.”

Hamlin says they are looking to hold an in-person “big summer community event” such as the one they did last year in a virtual format.

“We would have some drumming and some singing and some dancing and some feasting as well,” Hamlin says.

Hamlin says they plan to continue offering some of the programmings they were offering through virtual events such as ribbon skirt classes, medallion classes, beaded earring classes, Anishinaabemowin beginner classes for young children, programming for youth and recreational activities.

“We still would continue to offer our food hampers,” Hamlin says. “Those go out weekly to the community or they come and pick them up.”

Hamlin says they will also be using their outside space, which includes a big garden and landscaped area.

“We have all the medicines planted in there,” Hamlin says. “So we hope to have the community really soon coming in and helping us harvest some of those medicines that are ready to get harvested like sweetgrass.”

Hamlin says the outside space is connected with the centre by two large sliding doors that lead into the kitchen and main space.

“It’s almost like when you open those doors because the windows are so big, even if they’re closed, it’s like you have the outside inside,” Hamlin says. “And we have a big skylight at the top where that main space is and the kitchen is where we would have a lot of our gatherings.”

The virtual grand opening of the centre featured a walk-through of the new site; video statements from York South-Weston MPP Faisal Hassan and Katharine Bambrick, CEO of the Ontario Trillium Foundation; live speeches from Toronto Mayor John Tory, Jeffrey Schiffer, executive director at Native Child and Family Service of Toronto; and an opening by Jackie Esquimaux-Hamlin, a community grandmother.

“We are envisioning these hubs as intergenerational spaces so we can see young kids engaging and interacting with their parents, but then also coming back for a culture night or a community ceremony with their grandparents, older siblings and their friends,” Schiffer says. “I think having all of those generations interacting in one place is going to be very supportive for the community.”