After a "challenging year" for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Prince George, the non-profit is celebrating two new vans and the hope that it can resume programs early next year.
Five local partners helped buy the 15-passenger vehicles, offering $75,000 over the next three years.
At Thursday's announcement, board president Wende Bracklow said 2016 has been a tough year for the nonprofit.
"These vans help represent sustainable funding sources for our agency. We have already been able to double our child care spaces because of increased transportation capacity and have the capacity to grow our community shuttle program," said Bracklow in her prepared statement, which was shared with The Citizen.
"It is our goal that in three years these two programs will help generate 50 per cent of our operating budget annually."
In August, the BBBS laid off three staff members and said it would delay fall programs after the society found its 2015 fundraising efforts had fallen short and it was $35,000 in debt. That move affected four programs: Team Up; Game On; Strong Youth, Fearless Women; Go Girls and Girls' Club.
Executive director Tim Bennett said the plan is to get them going again at the start of the new year.
"(We) hope to launch groups we are getting ready to announce that these programs will resume in January 2017 and hope to have our staff levels restored for that time as well," he said by email.
Bracklow said that cash flow crunch forced them to "make very difficult decisions and truly evaluate our agency and operations."
Bracklow said that its current two vans, purchased three years ago with donor help, are well used and help generate 40 per cent of its annual budget and have travelled 100,000 kilometres between them.
"We are truly humbled by the response of our amazing community over the past couple of months," she said. "We know we have a couple challenging months ahead of us still but as an agency are committed to rebuilding our foundation for 2017 and beyond. (Thursday's) announcement is a critical part of that."
Two new local companies - Tyrod Industries and Obsession Automotive - joined Integris Credit Union, Save on Foods and Trimline, which were all exisitng BBBS supporters.
