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The facility will include a walk-in clinic on the main level, which will provide urgent mental health and addiction services, and intensive treatment services on the second floor to help young people in crisis and prevent the need for hospitalization. On the third floor, there will be a day hospital to support patients transitioning from hospital.

Jason Luan, Alberta’s associate minister of mental health and addictions, said the fact that donors have stepped up so quickly to support the centre “speaks volumes to how much mental health means to all of us.”

Premier Jason Kenney also commended the amount raised, “even in tough times” in the province.

“I cannot think of a better expression of the Alberta spirit of community than the generosity on display here today,” he said.

Photo by Azin Ghaffari / Postmedia

Officials say young people and their families have been advisers on the initiative. One of the members of the centre’s youth advisory council, Naomi Pearce, 18, shared her experience of getting help at 16 years of age for mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.

“The world can be a very dark and lonely place when you isolate yourself, and at 16 years old, my world was pitch black,” Pearce told the crowd gathered for the groundbreaking.

She said for years she had been under the impression that her thoughts and feelings were her problem, and that she was “broken in some way.”

After getting care in hospital, where she was admitted for two months, Pearce said “light began to filter back” into her world. She is now in her first year of studies at Red Deer College and plans to pursue a career in medicine.