Belleville’s Children’s Safety Village management is asking Belleville council for a $125,000 loan to pay for the planning and public engagement phase leading up to a major fundraising campaign.
Monday, Executive Director of the Safety Village Bill Glisky told council they need to get shovels in the ground as soon as possible at their new location in Clifford Sonny Belch Park.
The goal of the fundraising campaign will be $4 million.
Glisky said over the past 20 years the Safety Village has provided valuable training to several thousand children.
“We involve them in what they are learning so they will truly understand how to be safe in a world that becomes
more and more challenging every day. And we hope to continue doing that work for the next 20 years.”
Glisky said that at their current location, the old Belleville police station on Dundas East, they had never received a penny from government, including the city.
However he explained that the Village’s Board of Directors and management had never been planning for a move to another location but it was suddenly made necessary by a decision to use the police station property to build affordable housing through Habitat for Humanity.
Glisky stressed how important the programs offered at the Safety Village are to the community but said it was hard to come up with statistics proving it.
“One of the challenges we face at the Children’s Safety Village is proving that our work is successful. It is very hard to show how many children were NOT hit by a car because street safety was taught to them at The Village.”
Other than the loan, the Safety Village is also asking for a $100,000 donation from the city when the fundraising campaign begins.
Council sent the request to budget discussions which get underway Tuesday.
