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Every child deserves a chance

RBC North Bay News Release ************************ Every child deserves a chance. Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week took place from May 3 to 9 and RBC wanted to show its support.
Kate Adams



RBC North Bay
News Release

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Every child deserves a chance. Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week took place from May 3 to 9 and RBC wanted to show its support. On May 6th RBC presented a gift of $28,000 to Hands TheFamilyHelpNetwork.ca (Hands) in North Bay.

“RBC believes in giving back to the communities in which we live and work with donations that help promote a stronger, healthier and sustainable future,” said Lauri Petz, RBC Regional Vice President, North Central region. “Supporting Children’s Mental Health is one of our primary focuses at RBC and I’m so pleased to present this gift to Hands TheFamilyHelpNetwork.ca.”

The donation from RBC will be directed towards the Hands’ Storytelling initiative, Difficult Lives, Inspiring Stories”. This initiative sees a master storyteller prepare a script with students at selected schools that help articulate the student's personal experiences about challenges they face around bullying, depression, anxiety, and peer pressure. Trained psychologists and child and family therapists work in conjunction with the team to ensure the story follows appropriate and impactful key messages, and helps children use the story to empower themselves to act out the various scenes in front of the school for self-esteem building and learning about teamwork.

“We are absolutely thrilled with the continuing support of the RBC to address child and youth mental health and the story telling experience. So far the “Difficult Lives, Inspiring Stories” has been presented to approximately 6000 students. The impact to de-stigmatize mental health issues and empower children and youth to addressing social and emotional difficulties that this grant allows is just terrific. This grant is a great way to celebrate children’s mental health week.”

Children’s Mental Health is a national pillar of support for RBC. As such, RBC will be celebrating Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week at all branches in North and East Ontario. RBC has contributed over $1,000,000 to organizations that assist children’s mental health awareness and prevention in Ontario in 2010.

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