New community centre opens

Dennis Hanagan — 

The new $22 million Regent Park community centre officially opened Feb. 27 at Shuter and Sackville streets with tours, a lunch and performances by local school children.

With all the work put into it by people in the community, Deputy Mayor Pam McConnell told the crowd “this is a place that has been built on many, many shoulders.”

McConnell, who also represents Regent Park on city council, encouraged audience members to shout out the names of community members who have prominently worked to get the centre built. About a dozen names were shouted out from around the auditorium.

McConnell said Regent Park “is being used as a model across the city” for other communities.

Janie Romoff, general manager of Parks, Forestry and Recreation, said the 60,000 square foot centre—with an outdoor playfield, a weight room, a games room, computers, a gym and basketball court, a banquet hall, outdoor baking ovens, a climbing wall and an array of programs for children up to older adults—is one of several new Regent Park recreation facilities that total $60 million.

Patricia Walcott, general manager of Toronto Employment and Social Services, said the facility’s employment centre, in partnership with Dixon Hall, offers onsite workshops, resumé writing, “customized” services to meet Regent Parks specific needs and connections with potential employers.

She thanked McConnell for being “such a strong champion of Regent Park.”

Greg Spearn, CEO of Toronto Community Housing, thanked the Daniels Corporation for its contributions to Regent Park. “The community is so much better with you there,” he said.

Trevlyn Kennedy with the centre’s Youth Advisory Council, gave her definition of what a community is. It’s “the things, the location, the people that make us feel comfortable.

McConnell said Regent Park residents started years ago to donate $2 monthly to raise funds to build a community centre. Eventually governments stepped in the with the cash, and the residents’ “quite considerable” funds, according to McConnell, were set aside to create the Regent Park Legacy Funds Trust that gives up to $1,000 grants, from earned interest, to support residents-led community programs.