St. Paul Gymnastics receives $1K plus donation

The St. Paul Gymnastics Club received a $1,261 donation from Century 21 Poirier Real Estate last week.

The donation was made as part of the annual donations made by the brokerage from their commissions on house sales in St. Paul and the surrounding area.

Tyler Poirier, one of the business partners, said they decided to revamp the way they do donations a few years ago in order to have some consistency and a formalized way for giving back to the community.

“So now, when people complete their real estate deal, we have an email that goes out, and then they get a Google Form with a number of community organizations that we can support,” said Poirier.

At the end of the year, they tally the votes for each organization and cut a cheque to the top three before Christmas.

“We are still okay to receive applications from organizations and add them in to the Google Form to be able to be selected,” said Poirier, noting that in 2019 the recipients were the CAP Arena, KidSport, and St. Paul Minor Hockey, and while the other two recipients for 2020 have not yet been announced, they are all different groups than last year.

He said the amount donated varies from year to year and is still dependent on sales for the company, but the percentage they’ve set is one per cent of the profitable commissions.

According to Denise Jean, volunteer and event co-ordinator with St. Paul Gymnastics, like all donations the money from Century 21 Poirier Real Estate will help the club get closer to their goal of having a permanent building.

Currently, the gymnastics club operates out of the gym at the French community centre and volunteers set up and tear down the equipment every week.

“It’s taking a toll on our equipment and exhausting our volunteers. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a building suited for our needs, so that’s how it needs to be done for the time being. We are always looking for a permanent home for the club,” said Jean.

According to Jean, donations are also used to replace equipment, for operational costs, and savings.

“Depending on the session and the year, we have up to 180 kids enrolled. The class that has become popular for the kids is Parkour. We are happy to have recently added new equipment for that group, which can also be used for our Kindergym program,” said Jean.

Parkour is an individual sport where participants complete obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing that has been growing in popularity in North America for the better part of the last decade.

“Poirier Real Estate has been a generous supporter of the gymnastics club for many years and as always we are incredibly grateful for their support,” said Jean.