Prosper Place Clubhouse is located in the new Canadian Mental Health building at 10232 106th Street on the main floor. It provides programs and services that may be of interest to people in our area. 

I spoke recently with Nelson Sanchez and Colin Simpson, the co-managers of Prosper Place Clubhouse. Colin explains that, “Prosper Place is a community of people with lived experience of mental health challenges or addictions concerns. People come here to have the dignity of exploring, discovering and choosing their own personal paths of recovery, wellness and resilience.” The clubhouse falls under the umbrella of Canadian Mental Health Association.

Colin said, “Membership is open to adults 18 and over. People do not need to be referred. They need to identify as a person with a mental health challenge or an addictions concern or both. There is no membership fee to join Prosper Place.”

Prosper Place is run with the assistance of a peer directors board. Nelson and Colin firmly believe that the programming should be developed under the direction of members. 

Nelson Sanchez explains that there are four pillars that guide the programming at Prosper Place. 

“The first pillar is skill building. Members can come and learn different job skills like working in front reception, working in the canteen, using the debit machine, receipt balancing, stock management, washing dishes.” This is done through a mentoring system. Prosper Place employs peer leaders who are trained in these areas and then in turn train other members.”

The second pillar, says Nelson, is, “personal growth; we offer a lot of different workshops and drop-in sessions. We have ‘wellness’ every week which is a drop-in group, yoga, an art workshop, and several workshops coming in the new year.” 

The third pillar is food security. Nelson says, “At Prosper Place we have a cook who makes meals for our members that are only $5. We also have a cantina. Members can have free coffee and tea and buy low cost snacks like pop and chips. The other part of food security is that we are a satellite area for the food bank. Members can go into our food pantry and take a few bags of groceries home. We are also tied in with the closed food hamper program where someone fills out an application and people can either pick a hamper up from the food bank or we can organize it for someone to drop it off here.”

Nelson explains the fourth pillar: “Socialization is one of the most important things with mental health care. People often live in isolation and don’t have the opportunity to socialize. Some of our members don’t have the means to go out and do things. We have social rec every Wednesday and the activities range from karaoke to bingo and card games or board games. Once a month we throw a special event. These are usually ticketed events; they are low cost and include a meal and entertainment.”

“What’s really exciting about Prosper Place,” Colin says, “is that we have just moved. We are adding in new programming, a visual arts class, an improv theatre group with a partnership with The Grindstone Theatre, and there is in the works a digital literacy/confidence workshop series for small groups.”

People are welcome to come for a tour Monday afternoons and Wednesday mornings.  

Corine Demas lives in McCauley where she is the President of the McCauley Community League, the Executive Director of the  Heart of the City Festival, and a board member with Boyle McCauley News.