HEARTFUL HEROES

Precious Minds

BY MICHELLE VINER PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF PRECIOUS MINDS

CHESTNUT PARK’S

Heartful Heroes Heartful Heroes

Providing care, support, and hope to individuals with developmental disabilities. 1. 2.

H eartful Heroes

3. Heartful Heroes

4.

Heartful Heroes

5.

Enjoying Precious Minds summer camp.

Precious Minds was established in 1999, in the Uxbridge area, to develop community inclusion and encourage friendship for individuals with development disabilities. Sharon Simmonds saw first-hand the challenges her friend Elizabeth Graham was having in raising her son, diagnosed with autism, and set out to seek programming that could help him. Joined by Bonnie Noble, a special needs educator, and Stephanie Weddel, an early childhood educator, Precious Minds was created to develop that programming and has been bringing care, support, and hope to the area of North Durham ever since.

One of their programs is Skills for Life, a weekly adult program that engages people aged 18+ in daytime opportunities that include a variety of educational, physical, recreational and creative opportunities. Throughout Covid, Skills for Life pivoted to become the Zoom Café where participants can connect online and decide the theme for the weekly event - everything from dance and music, to sports. For younger kids, Precious Minds offers programming that includes fitness activities like swimming, to promote good health, a Lego friendship and robotics club that employs strategies of engineering and working together, and a very popular Super Strikers Bowling league that meets weekly for fun in the lanes.

For Chas Harding, Executive Director of Precious Minds since 2019, after having served on the board of directors since 2012, her mandate is clear: “We work to create community and friendship and we do so by offering meaningful, creative, and fun programs.”

To help them to do that, they rely on a number of volunteers who work alongside staff members to run the programs, sometimes with a one-to-one ratio of care.

Sarah Hughes is one of those volunteers who has been with Precious Minds since her early years of high school. Sarah is now a fourth-year university student who is studying biology and psychology at McMaster University in Hamilton. >>

Having fun at the fitness zone swim. “I wanted to volunteer in a meaningful way and signed up for their after-school bowling program and was instantly hooked. Throughout high school I volunteered with all of their programs and then began working at their summer camps,” says Sarah.

Held at the community centre in Uxbridge Township, the summer camp runs through the two months of summer and offers weekly sessions of both indoor and outdoor programs that appeal to different age groups through different themes. While their charitable status is mandated to Durham Region, participants attend the camp from Bowmanville, Pickering, Ajax and beyond. They even had a participant for several summers who travelled each year from England to live with his grandparents in the summer and attend Precious Minds.

“Our programs and our summer camp are open to individuals whose eligibility is determined through an intake process,” explains Harding. “We want to ensure that we have the skillset to manage any behavioural issues or needs that may come up to ensure that the Precious Minds experience will be a positive one for participants and their families and that is inside the scope of our care.”

Precious Minds is not government funded and relies on corporations, foundations, community grants, and fundraising events to help raise funds and keep fees affordable for families. A golf tournament is a main event each year, as is an annual pairing event with Uxbridge Hospital that invites locals to an evening of sampling community vendors’ food and wine.

“One of my favourite parts of volunteering with this organization is the people,” says Sarah. “It is really just an overwhelming sense of support and community and everyone is great to be around. I want to go into psychology and am now looking at implementing mental health services for young people with development exceptionalities. I know that my decision comes after years of working with Precious Minds.”

For more information on Precious Minds please visit: preciousminds.com