The Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op is a charitable organization dedicated to providing education and skills to marginalized youth ages 15-21 in Saskatoon’s core neighbourhoods. They offer a variety of programs designed to assist youth who are no longer involved in the regular system in the development of marketable skills while continuing their high school education in a small safe environment.

A large component of the Co-op’s life skills program is nutrition and cooking. Every day youth and staff prepare healthy meals for lunch. For many youth the lunches are the only healthy food they have access to. Many of the youth are transient, moving from one location to another regularly sleeping on the streets. By providing healthy food every day, as well as teaching important life skills such as cooking, the program is helping the youth to improve their physical well being.

Staffing
We are forever grateful to our tried and true staff, Nathan Krieger (shop foreman) and Denver Falconer (computer technician), who have been with us from the beginning and have made our first year a success. We have also hired several new staff members to our growing team, including Lindsey Elliot who started with us in January of this year.

Showroom Kitchens
This spring, we completed our showroom kitchens to display eco friendly alternatives. We have a Wenge Wood Veneer kitchen as our centre piece. This veneer is eco friendly as it saves cutting down precious trees. We also have a children’s kitchen built out of Bamboo. Bamboo is environmentally friendly because it grows so quickly and it can be harvested every 5 years.

Grand Opening
We celebrated our Grand Opening March 20th and 21st. It was a huge success! We had tours of the showroom and the back shop along with machine demonstrations. We had refreshments and a variety of door prizes with a grand prize of a free upgrade to our maple plywood interior. We estimate that we had over 150 people attend our grand opening.

Special Projects
We have had the pleasure of completing many amazing renovations and new builds over the past year. Some of the unique projects we completed over the past year include:

• Donating a kitchen to a young women dying of cancer.
• Completing a fully accessible kitchen for young women in a wheelchair.
• Completing our first bamboo kitchen.

New Products
We made the decision to switch over all our lacquers from solvent-based to water based. This is healthier for our employees and better for our customers as they have no off gassing.

We continue to offer our maple plywood interiors as an alternative to the traditional melamine interior. The maple plywood is much sturdier, is formaldehyde free, and gives the cabinet interior a finished look.

We are very proud to be offering Silastial Glass products which are from Victoria, B.C. and which Mirage has the exclusive rights for in Saskatchewan. We are also now offering Paperstone Countertops directly from our shop. This is a unique environmentally friendly product made from recycled paper.

Upcoming Year
This upcoming year, we are planning to continue growing our business. We are looking forward to expanding our sales staff, increasing our production, and donating a kitchen to the Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op.

Customer Testimonial

“I feel I have had a great experience with Mirage Woodworks Inc. I felt they were very accommodating, listened to my needs and I liked the hands on approach. I liked to see the design and be able to work together to adjust it, etc. I liked that I didn’t have to give a deposit to see the design and quote. I felt the price was reasonable and workable. I also liked that when they said they would do something, they did. I felt Mirage overall cared about the work they did, they stood behind it. That makes a big difference to me. Thanks.”

-C. Morrison

“I got estimates from five different companies and Mirage was above and beyond the best in quality of construction. After I met AJ, I knew he would build my cabinets as if they were his own. I loved that passion and put down a deposit on the spot! It was great to have the owner come out and measure our kitchen without hesitation, no other company would do that.”

-Glen Pilon