It’s for the children.
To the Myers family, donating $1 million to help build a new Children’s Treatment Centre is that simple.
“We believe in kids. We believe in helping out as much as we can in the area,” said Rob Myers, who along with his wife, Cathy, and daughter, Jessica, donated seven figures to the centre’s Butterfly Building Campaign on Friday. “I watch a lot of these parents where they have disabled or handicapped children and I realize my wife and I have been blessed that we didn’t have to deal with that. It’s something a lot of parents deal with.”
To date, the Foundation of the Children’s Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent has now raised $9.5 million. The new facility, when completed, is to have about 55,000 square feet of space at the future McNaughton Avenue West location, more than double the space of the current facility on Lark Street.
The centre helps children and youth who are facing physical, developmental and communication challenges. It’s bursting at the seams, said Donna Litwin-Makey, executive director of the centre.
“We use our washrooms for offices; we don’t have a staff room as we use it for programs,” she said.
Rob Myers, CEO of RM Sotheby’s, said a visit to the Children’s Treatment Centre a number of years ago opened his eyes to all the good being done at the facility.
“The mayor brought me here a few years ago and I got to meet some of the parents and some of the children. We thought, ‘Why not help as much as we can?’ Our family’s fortunate enough to be in a position to be able to do something like this.”
Jessica Myers said the treatment centre is an important part of Chatham-Kent.
“It means a great deal. One of my children came here for speech therapy. A lot of my friends bring their children here for various reasons. This facility supports one-in-five families,” she said.
“It obviously helps a lot of people in a lot of different ways. You can come in and use the pool for rehabilitation, you can take speech therapy, you can get music therapy; there are so many different offerings here. It’s just such a great facility for the community,” she added.
The $1-million donation had Litwin-Makey and Mike Genge, president of the centre’s foundation, ecstatic.
“This is absolutely incredible,” Genge said. “Rob and Cathy and Jessica have been involved with what we are doing for a while now. We talked about what we were doing and the family came back and said, ‘We want to commit and we want to commit as being the lead donor for this project.’”
“The wonder of this is kind of indescribable. The family’s wonderful generosity is just amazing,” Litwin-Makey said, adding the support is more than just money. “Your commitment brings our confidence level up. It helps us all know how respected and valued our kids are, and our families. That’s a spectacular gift on top of the dollars.”
Rob Myers, who admits he’s impatient, wants to see shovels in the ground sooner rather than later, and is optimistic that will be the case.
“It looks like this spring they’re going to start building this facility,” he said.
Litwin-Makey said they are in the process of finalizing costing and planning.
“We are pre-qualifying general contractors right now. The forecast is mid-February to post for a general contractor,” she said. “We’re meeting all of the ministry (of children, community and social services) deadlines, but we have to wait for their OK. As for what date that shovel goes in the ground, I cannot speculate.”
She estimated the construction will take about two years and hoped for completion by the end of 2025.
The new Children’s Treatment Centre will feature a range of essential amenities, including a dedicated gym, therapy rooms, and an updated pool that will be accessible to both clients and the community. The increased office space will enhance the working environment for staff and provide improved charting capabilities.
With another $500,000 in local fundraising needed for the project, Rob Myers said he hoped his family’s donation will help encourage others to help push the project to the finish line.
