Sun Youth move won't stop it from feeding 20,000 people during holidays
After 37 years in the old Baron Byng High School on St-Urbain Street, Sun Youth is packing it in this weekend.
The work started Friday after months of planning.
"It hurts, it's very painful," said Sid Stevens, the head of Sun Youth.
The community service agency is giving the building back to the Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM), the city's largest school board, which needs it because of an uptick in enrolment.
Sun Youth had been leasing the building from the CSDM and the city was covering the rent.
The 64-year-old organization will now operate out of three different locations as it searches for a permanent home.
The organization said in a news release that it wants to ultimately stay in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood and that the temporary spaces are "a very suitable solution for the mid-term."
The space that will house its food bank, clothing bank and other main services is in Parc-Extension on Parc Avenue, near St-Zotique Street.
But St-Urbain is the only location Sun Youth spokesperson Ann St. Arnaud has ever known.
She said the Sun Youth community came together to help with the move, but for some, it was too emotional.
"The kids that grew up in this place couldn't even come say goodbye, it was too hard for them," St. Arnaud said.
The move will take Sun Youth to its fourth location since it was founded in 1954.
"A lot of nostalgia, a lot of fond memories we're leaving behind," Stevens said, as volunteers carried boxes down the halls Friday.
Holiday baskets still being given out
Despite the move, the organization still plans to give out its holiday baskets. Distribution will start earlier than normal to ensure everyone gets what they need.
"Instead of having like 1,000 families per day, we'll have 500 families per day on a longer period of time," St. Arnaud said.
Stevens said the organization will give food to about 20,000 people and give away 5,000 new toys to children under the age of 12.
"We will meet that target," he said.
The city is committing $1 million to cover Sun Youth's rent for the next three years.
After that, the organization hopes to move into a building it will construct on a vacant lot.
With files from Valeria Cori-Manocchio
