Non-profit Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming (SCYAP) closes doors after 23 years
CBC
After 23 years in the community, the Saskatoon Community Youth Arts Programming (SCYAP) is closing its doors. Community members say it's a grave loss.
The Saskatoon non-profit helped at-risk youth through art and employment opportunities, and created more than 60 large-scale mural projects since its inception in 2001, including along Broadway and on the parkade wall of St. Paul's Hospital.
"We found since COVID-19, there were less opportunities in the granting process. So, we failed to secure any long-term funding that would make it sustainable for the future," Clay Shaw, SCYAP's former operations manager, told Saskatoon Morning Monday.
"It came to a point where unfortunately we just couldn't continue."
Social media has been flooded with posts expressing loss and shock at the closure.
Before relocating to its 33rd Street location, SCYAP was based downtown, serving a lot of "the street level people who needed a safe place to go," Shaw said. He said the organization offered a drop-in space where free art supplies were available to all.
"We used art as a tool for breaking down the barriers. Our main programs were employment readiness. Through personal development programs for redirection, we gave clients the tools to succeed for their first entry level jobs."
Shaw said he is concerned about long-term clients who "are heartbroken and feeling a little bit empty." He said he is referring them to other organizations in the community.
Raven Reid, an Indigenous singer-songwriter in Saskatoon, knows the importance of SCYAP first-hand. She attended the centre in her early 20s.
"At the time that I went there, I was struggling with addictions, homelessness and poverty," she said.
"I feel that the SCYAP program has put me on the right path to being who I am today."
She said she feels sorry for the "future youth" that SCYAP could have helped youth get off the streets, overcome addictions and heal through the arts.
"SCYAP was a very accessible program at the time that I utilized it. I was homeless, so to be accessible like that to people of less fortune is very important," she said.
"I know as an Indigenous person, sometimes I don't feel comfortable walking into big art galleries. And I'm an artist myself, so if it's hard for me, then it's probably hard for other people that are not artists."
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