COMMUNITY

Serving Our Communities

We strive to make giving back fun and engaging while supporting a worthy cause.

SUPPORT

Rifco Charity Involvement

Rifco takes great pride in investing in long-term relationships and that commitment carries over into our community.

Each year the staff at Rifco choose a worthy charity to support. The staff nominate various charities and a team vote is put in place to select the charity for the year. Our dedicated Charity Committee spearheads activities geared to raise as much money as possible for our selected charity through various office fundraisers, team events and our annual Charity Golf Tournament.

This year we are supporting The Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre. If you see posts of team fundraisers happening throughout the Rifco office you know this money is being raised for a good cause.

Past Charities we have supported – The Ronald McDonald House CA, Central Alberta Humane Society, The Red Deer Food Bank, Haitian Children’s Aid Society

11th Annual Rifco
Charity Golf Classic

IN SUPPORT OF

The Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre

September 7, 2023

2023 CHARITY

Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre

The Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre is a not for profit organization rooted in the protection and recovery of today’s most innocent and vulnerable – our children.

In the early 2000s, an epidemic of youth suicides hit hard in central Alberta, and the September 2015 suicide of 22-year-old Lindsey More sparked a bigger conversation about what could be done to prevent them.

In response, a coalition was formed with the initial goal of providing necessary mental health resources for adolescents. Around the same time, Sheldon Kennedy – lead director at the formerly named Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre  (now the Calgary & Area CAC), and a long-time friend of Board Chair Terry Loewen – recommended that the coalition begin a centre of their own. He invited the members to Calgary to see the centre there.

Upon returning to Red Deer, Mark Jones (now CEO of the CACAC) brought together all the different organizations responsible for protecting children, and connected with community members who could make the centre a reality. The first coalition evolved into a board to oversee operations, and a service team was created.

Together, the team renovated an old office building and designed a child-friendly space. Starting with a skeleton staff of just 3, the centre opened in November 2017 and was working on real cases by mid-December.

Since then, the CACAC has expanded, with 9 core CAC staff and  taking over more space in its temporary building in order to provide in-office mental health therapy services and increased family support space. The organization has provided a number of presentations for use around central Alberta, and continues to bring awareness to a subject that is difficult – but necessary – to confront.

The story of the CACAC continues today, and the organization remains committed to changing the way that the people of central Alberta overcome child abuse.