Yellowknife Women's Society renovating part of office into daycare

A Yellowknife charitable organization is renovating part of its office to accommodate a daycare space.

"This is us expanding our programming to fill a gap," explained Yellowknife Women's Society (YWS) board member Shauna Morgan on Thursday.

The gap opened last November, when Kids Corner Childcare shut down.

In response, the women's societyopened a daycare in a church to provide care to the kids impacted. Now, work is underway to make part ofthe organization's office, near the intersection of 47 Street and 51 Avenue, suitablefor 16 children and 12 infants.

Those spots will likelybe taken up by most of the kids nowattending the daycare at the church, Morgan said.

The organization already runs a daycare via the Centre for Northern Families.

Morgan said theYWSkeeps its daycare prices "affordable."

"It's an important way that the [organization] strives to be self sufficient. So to have, essentially, a social enterprise where we can do an activity that fits with our mandate, but also makes some revenues for the organization so that we're not totally dependant on grants and funding from outside sources," she said.

On Wednesday, members of the charity 100 Men Who Give aDamn donated more than $10,000 to the women's society. The money will be used for the renovations, including installing an area for kids to play in.

"It's definitely a huge relief to get that funding," Morgan said.

The plan is to open the daycare in the coming months.

As reported earlier in the week, the organization also wants to turn the Arnica Inn into transitional housing, which is also where its office would relocate to.