Sarnia-Lambton Rebound has received a significant financial boost from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
The organization is benefitting from a $46,800 grant under the Resilient Communities Fund.
Executive Director Carrie McEachran said part of it will be used to purchase new laptops for staff, and Chrome notebooks for youth.
She said they'll also be developing a more robust volunteer recruitment and training system.
"It's a new system that will be tracking both our donors, which is great because we did not have a system in place before, as well as tracking our volunteer hours and our amazing volunteers," said McEachran. "It's really keeping us organized with that as we continue to grow. We are revamping the volunteer training. With the whole new world that we're in with virtual programs and new things that have come up with youth and new programs we will be creating, we'll be doing a whole new revamp and refresh of our volunteer engagement and orientation."
McEachran said Rebound has over 200 volunteers, assisting about 350 youth annually through 12 programs, and has offices in Sarnia, Petrolia and Forest.
She said Rebound's new strategic plan focuses on redefining, rebooting and reimagining the future of the organization.
"It's just looking at all of our programs, redefining what those look like, doing a big reboot to shake up some programs and maybe creating some new programs that the youth would like to see, and then reimagining what this new future will look like."
The process started in May 2021 with the hiring of consultants to guide the board and staff through the future plans of Rebound.
This also included a wide reach out to community partners, youth, and other supporters of the organization who provided their vision for Rebound through surveys and some interviews.
