History

In April 2004, the Ten Oaks Project was co-founded by Holly Wagg and Julia Alarie, who together noticed a gap in services for the children and youth of LGBTQ families in the National Capital Region.

The first program to grow out of this vision was Camp Ten Oaks, followed by Rainbow Families and most recently, Project Acorn.

Camp Ten Oaks

The feasibility of a summer camp program was tested through a needs assessment survey conducted between April and August 2004. The report, We Wanna Summer Camp Program!, was released in December of that year.

Highlights from this report include:

• 81.6% of LGBTQ parents, guardians, LGBTQ youth and allies would send their children, or attend themselves, a camp program designed specifically for the LGBTQ community
• 65.6% of survey respondents wanted a summer sleep-away camp more than a summer day, family, March/Spring break or Christmas break camp
• One week was the preferred length for a camp program
• The majority of respondents, 62.4%, felt that a camp program would be more accessible to themselves and/or their families if it were offered on a sliding scale

Eleven months of fundraising, planning and development resulted in a one-week summer camp, the first of its kind in Canada, in August 2005. 

Rainbow Families

Partnering with Family Services Ottawa and Centretown Community Health Centre in October 2004, the Ten Oaks Project began to deliver a bi-monthly program for children of LGBTQ families. The Rainbow Families group, for GLBTTQ parents and their children, was the first of its kind in Ottawa.

The parents' group met for support, education and advocacy. Childcare was provided for children 0 to 6 and the Ten Oaks Project provided programming for children 7-12.

In July 2006, the Ten Oaks Project decided to focus its efforts on growing its organization, while Family Services Ottawa and Centretown Community Health Centre continued to offer much needed support to GLBTTQ families through this group.

Project Acorn

In 2009, we launched Project Acorn, a unique leadership retreat for youth aged 16-24 from LGBTQ communities. The Project Acorn Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) guides the development, planning and delivery of the retreat with support and guidance from the Ten Oaks Project's board of directors. The engaged and active participation of the YAC, and the unique perspective of each of its members help to create a leadership development retreat that reflects the aspirations and capacities of youth from LGBTQ communities.