No Place Like Home

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO BOOST THE COMMUNITY, and CAA Niagara is stepping up — as always. Every year, our Community Boost program awards two $10,000 grants, along with additional strategic support, to two local non-profit groups. One of the recipients in 2024 was the Family and Child Services (FACS) Niagara Foundation and they’ve already started putting the funds to good use. “Child welfare is a shared responsibility,” says Brett Sweeney, director of communications and community engagement at FACS Niagara, which provides daycare programs as well as counselling and adoption services. “We’re all in this together.” Previously, many children in Niagara had to seek treatment outside of their area. Now, FACS is converting a property into a 10-bed group home where kids can get specialized mental-health treatment closer to their support systems. “They’ve had to leave what they’ve always known as home [in order to] get the help they need,” Sweeney says. “But now, we’ll be bringing a number of these children [closer to] home.” CAA