Courtesy
The Phelps Helps team in front of their new Stanstead location on Sept. 10, the day they launched their $550,000 “Building Bright Futures” campaign

Phelps Helps launches $550,000 campaign to build a youth hub in Stanstead

By William Crooks

Local Journalism Initiative

Phelps Helps has launched an ambitious $550,000 fundraising campaign to establish a permanent, youth-focused space in Stanstead. Dubbed “Building Bright Futures,” the initiative officially kicked off on Sept. 10 with a community-wide matching donation program, aiming to double the impact of every contribution made before the end of October.

A growing need for space

Founded in 2012 with just a handful of participants, Phelps Helps has grown exponentially, now serving over 400 youth annually in Stanstead and the surrounding region. That number is expected to rise by another 15 per cent once the new facility opens in early 2026.

“Phelps has steadily grown over the years. We started with seven or twelve kids, and now we’re serving over 400,” said Sophie Nagle, Director of Advancement at Phelps Helps, in an interview on Sept. 9. “We’ve managed to maintain that surge post-COVID. With so many kids passing through our doors for various programs, we simply needed more space.”

The organization currently operates from a building that was put up for sale and had become too small to accommodate the scale of programming required. Instead of investing further in a space that no longer met their needs, the team opted to launch a capital campaign to purchase and renovate a larger building nearby.

“Nothing’s wrong with the building,” Nagle clarified. “It was actually going up for sale. It was a little small. So rather than invest in this building, we decided it’s time—now—we’ve been talking about it for a while—to move into a space that was bigger, that has an outdoor space, and that we can really… make our own.”

Designed for youth, by youth advocates

A related press release states that renovations on the new centrally located building are slated to begin this fall. Once complete, the new Phelps Helps hub will feature:

• Flexible tutoring spaces with sound-dampening features, ergonomic furniture, and adjustable lighting
• A central teaching kitchen for cooking workshops and life-skills development
• A multi-use outdoor area for basketball, street hockey, gardening, and shaded study spaces
• A community hub for parent workshops, mental health programming, and roundtable discussions

“The new building will offer open spaces and closed spaces, which allows us to really target kids who need no distractions or no sensory overload,” Nagle explained. “We’ll also have a really central kitchen—that’s going to be brand new. It’ll be a learning kitchen. So, the kids will be able to cook together.”

The new facility will also bring greater accessibility. “It’s a better location,” she said. “It’s up the road. It means that we’ll be able to reach more kids because of the bus crossover… All of the buses will go past that stop, so more kids, more accessible.”

Serving a broad age range

Although Stanstead is a small town, the demand for Phelps Helps services is significant. Programming is offered to individuals aged 6 to 35, with six separate streams including elementary, high school, and a campus program focused on career development and returning to school. A youth club also provides activities for young adults.

In the Stanstead area, one-third of 6- to 30-year-olds have a connection to Phelps, Nagle noted.

Community support is key

The “Building Bright Futures” campaign includes a matching donation component that runs until the end of October. The Secretariat à la Jeunesse of the Government of Quebec has committed to matching up to $100,000 through its Fonds Mille et UN program, hosted on the La Ruche crowdfunding platform.

Nagle emphasized that the campaign is about bringing people together. “It’s very collaborative,” she said. “People in the community who are donating $10—it’ll become $20.”

To donate or learn more, residents can visit: www.phelpshelps.ca/building-bright-futures