Marlin Spring Foundation to support non-profit youth initiatives
By Newinhomes on Jan 08, 2020
Photo: At the Gala Launch of the Marlin Spring Foundation, established by the Co-Founders of Marlin Spring whose objective is to support groups with youth-focused mandates in three key areas - education, mental health and youth programing. The Foundation's first program partnership is with WE Charity. Shown (l-r) Marlin Spring Co-Founder and CFO Elliot Kazarnovsky; Marlin Spring Foundation Executive Director, Shayna Haddon; WE Charity Co-Founder, Craig Kielburger and Marlin Spring Co-Founder and CEO, Benjamin Bakst.
New home builders and condo developers do more than create housing, they establish, improve, and support communities, and there are many ways to accomplish this, as Marlin Spring has demonstrated with their latest announcement.
Marlin Spring CEO Benjamin Bakst and CFO Elliot Kazarnovsky recently launched the Marlin Spring Foundation, which will support youth-oriented initiatives across Canada through three different branched; education, mental health, and various programming.
“Since we launched our real estate business five years ago, we have been dedicated to giving back to the community,” said Bakst in a release. “Now, we will be supporting the greater community on a broader level. Our mission is to create lasting change for those that are the most vulnerable, yet have the most potential – our children.”
The first partnership is with the WE Well-being program, which empowers people of all ages with tools and resources to create opportunities to improve one’s mental well-being and the mental well-being of a community. The program will eventually be rolled out to thousands of grade six classrooms in Canada.
This program is usually targeted at students at the university level, so this is a first for the WE Well-being program. In the first year, it will be offered in 70 schools, then it will ramp up to 500 schools in the second year. By year three, the Well-being program will be in 5,000 schools.
“We will accomplish this in three ways. First, as an international company, Marlin Spring is experienced in various business development initiatives. Through the Foundation, we will work with organizations to offer strategic direction on planning, budgeting and outcomes to achieve optimum success. Essentially, we will utilize our business as a resource in the partnership,” explained Kazarnovsky. “The second is through corporate and individual donations, and the third is through volunteers who help facilitate our programs. We take our tagline ‘Together we could change the world’ very seriously.”
“We know that 70 percent of mental health problems have their onset during childhood or adolescence and thanks to the Marlin Spring Foundation our new WE Well-being initiative will be able to reach and impact more young people across the country,” added Craig Kielburger, co-founder, WE. “By empowering educators to build a safe and caring environment we will create impact by helping to reduce stigma and other mental health risk factors in the classroom and beyond.”
Marlin Spring is going above and beyond with their commitment to improving the mental well-being of youth across the country. We can’t wait to see this program rolled out and supporting the children who need it the most.
