While construction is now underway, thousands of dollars still need to be raised to build a new facility for the Children’s Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent.
The Children’s Treatment Centre Foundation will be launching a final fundraising campaign in the fall called “Build For The Kids” to raise the remaining $500,000 needed for the Butterfly Building Campaign. Further information about the campaign has yet to be released.
The foundation has already raised $9.5 million towards the project, which will see a new 58,000‐square‐foot facility built on McNaughton Avenue West in Chatham.
“Right away the community understood that having a child without access to services that they needed wasn’t acceptable,” said foundation President and CEO Mike Genge. “We’re all parents, we’re all grandparents, we’re all aunts [and] uncles, whatever the case may be, and when you see a child that can’t get a service, it sucks. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The new building is expected to provide additional space to reduce wait times for rehabilitation services such as speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and autism services.
“I know that finishing the campaign is very, very achievable in this community. We have, I believe, the most generous community in Ontario,” said Genge.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Monday to celebrate the start of construction of the new facility, which is expected to be completed by the spring of 2026.