Treasure Trunk Program at Brenda's House

Brenda’s House is a re-housing program with a sheltering component aimed at moving families toward independence and their own sustainable housing. The Treasure Trunk program presented by the JLC targets key issues of nutrition and healthy eating, literacy, music and movement and the arts.  We offer developmentally appropriate, themed activities for the various ages of children who may be in residence during our twice-monthly sessions.

Our second Treasure Trunk session of this season was delivered on October 12 with Babies in the Story (BITS), Kids in Motion & Music (KIMM), and Kids in the Arts (KARTS).

In Babies in the Story, the parents, babies and toddlers were engaged with reading books, singing songs, playing hand clapping games, and laughter within the shared delight of reading and discovery.  Each family left with a bag of reading materials and finger puppet books.

The Kids in Motion & Music component was led by JLC member Natalie Wynn-Dempsey, who had the young children dancing, moving with scarves, chasing bubbles and shrieking with laughter and delight at the various surprises she pulled out of her hat to engage and stimulate the children.

During the Kids in the Arts component, the children made masks with an ample supply of objects, feathers, jewels and glitter to stick on them.  Several of the children stated they would use the masks for their Halloween activities, as they planned on being animals, princesses and pirates!

On October 25 we delivered our third Treasure Trunk session with the Kids in the Story (KITS) and Kids in the Kitchen (KITK) components presented to a house full of children by our JLC members.

JLC President Alice Gardner-Boreta (L) and local author
Lisa Youns share Lisa's book at Treasure Trunk

Local Calgary author Lisa Young came as a guest and read her book, “Friendship of Magpie and Crow” to all the children present.  She sat on the floor with the children, engaged them with her delightful story- telling style and had the children acting out parts of the book.  Each child was given a signed copy of her book for their personal libraries.  Many, many thanks to Lisa for adding such an enriching component to our Treasure Trunk!

KITS then progressed to the children making their own Friendship Bracelets, which complimented the theme about friendship in Lisa’s book.

Kids in the Kitchen capped a great evening with the children creating “spider snacks” with cracker bodies, pretzel legs, raisin eyes and Cheese Whiz gluing the animals together. Each child left with their own apron to wear in future cooking fun.

The nine future sessions of Treasure Trunk for this year will be delivered at the Brenda’s House facility located in the SW neighbourhood of Killarney in Calgary