OVCO is thrilled to announce that our lease for three rooms in the east wing of the former Vaughan Road Academy took effect on Friday, Sept.1, 2023.

OVCO’s Healthy Aging program will now move into that space and our community partners, Reena and the Learning Enrichment Foundation, will be occupying the two other rooms in this OV neighbourhood space over the next month.

We see this development as a start to establishing an ongoing community centre in our historically under-resourced neighbourhood.

We are making an appeal to you and your neighbours for your continued support.

Our lease brings heavy costs, of course, as does any property public or private in Toronto. One cost necessary in any school building serving children in care and young students is security of entry – to that end we have installed a door buzzer and monitor system to provide secure access to the Oakwood Vaughan Neighbourhood Centre programs.

Reena and LEF have provided the funds in the amount of $13,500 to meet this one-time cost. OVCO wishes to pay its one-third share of $4,500 but we need time to raise these funds.

Our first appeal is to you, our community supporters, asking that you make a donation to a designated fund that OVCO will set up. OVCO is a registered, non-profit charitable organization, so that we can issue charitable receipts for income tax purposes. We are hoping that with more than 250 supporters of this initiative we could achieve our fund raising goal of $4,500 within the next month.

Once again, thank you so much for your tremendous contribution to this long struggle for access to the valuable local facility that is the former VRA. We look forward to welcoming you to the Oakwood Vaughan Neighbourhood Centre in the near future.