On November 1 at the Sydney Grand Lake Firehall, EPIC held a wonderful celebration commemorating the first 20 years of the Youth Peer Breakthrough and Parents PEACE Programs. Youth Peer was first adopted by EPIC in 1998 and has been serving the community ever since.
This program has touched and changed lives of youth—both participants and volunteer tutor/mentors—families, and has impacted many community partner agencies in countless ways. Some of these impacts were expressed in short speeches from people associated with the program, both past and present, including representatives from the Board, Program Directors, Coordinators, Facilitators, volunteers and program participants, including parents and youth. We were very pleased to have as our first speaker of the night, Senator Dan Christmas, a founding Board Member for over 17 years!
In the hall, decorated with bright EPIC colours, were a display of EPIC awards, a wall of photos representing each of the twenty years, a fun photo booth, catered refreshments and table art made by our Youth Peer kids. Music was donated by the wonderful Taylor Burton and Emile Con, Youth Peer music teacher. As well, Wendy Bergfeldt of CBC radio's Mainstreet broadcast from the gathering, doing interviews with staff and guests.
A huge thank you to everyone who came out and those behind the scenes who worked to make this warm, welcoming evening possible. Special kudos to Fran Burton, our Celebration Planner.
See more photos on our Celebrations page.