NONA building Clubhouse

Photo: Darren Handschuh

Janice Foster, NONA board president.

Work on the new NONA Clubhouse is expected to begin soon with the facility opening in the fall.

The NONA Child Development Centre works with special needs children, and the 9,500-square-foot facility will help meet the growing demand in the North Okanagan to assist children with autism.

So far, $675,000 of the $1.6-million total has been raised and a variety of fundraising campaigns will be announced in the coming weeks.

NONA assists more than 700 children a year and the Clubhouse will double the number of therapy rooms, offer specialized learning opportunities for feeding and life skills and allow onsite access to supplies and unique teaching materials.

Janice Foster, NONA board president, said all of the services NONA provides are free of charge, and while NONA receives some government funding, it does not receive money for capital projects, so the centre turned to the public for assistance.

Helen Armstrong, NONA executive director, said NONA provides services to “children from birth to age 19 in some of our programs and from birth to school age in other programs."

The program is growing so fast it has outgrown its existing facility.

“We have a fast-growing program for children with autism. We have grown from two kids to currently over 55,” said Armstrong. “Autism is one of the fastest growing areas. We have more than 700 kids a year for any sort of developmental delays and the numbers keep growing.”

Campaign chairperson Ian Laidlaw said Monday's announcement that construction would soon begin “is the starting point of where we're going. We are still accepting donations. We are not done yet.”

Laidlaw said the last time NONA reached out to the public for assistance was 10 years ago when it built the Treehouse facility and he is confident the community will once again come through for the Clubhouse.

Foster said NONA will also be applying for grants, but for now enough money is in the bank to start the project.