Nearly 100 volunteers worked Friday to improve the play area at Edmonton’s Terra Centre, which supports teen parents. The work was part of the 20th annual United Way of Alberta Engineering Day of Caring, an event that brings workers from engineering and construction firms to help local non-profits. This year, volunteers came from 19 companies.

The Terra Centre provides income and housing support, family programming and help with high school completion. Volunteers replaced a fence, built a stage and an outdoor sensory station, expanded the playground and improved its play structure.

Hannah Gott, who was a teen parent at the centre, returned as a volunteer with her mother, Nicole Spence, an employee at an engineering firm. Gott called the return “heartwarming” and said she wanted to give back to the agency that helped her navigate being a young parent.

“I graduated in 2012. My son was one year old. And because of them, I was accepted to two universities,” Gott said. “They care so much and this means so much to them, which means so much to me.”

Spence said the centre helped Gott develop as a person and parent and supported her family. “It helped her grow as a person, as a parent, helped her family succeed,” Spence said. “Not only her but helping with her son’s father and just building that dynamic, that relationship, and supporting the whole family.”

Gott was volunteering for the first time, while some participants have returned for more than a decade. Tanya Kloos, a chairperson on the Engineering Day of Caring Committee, said experienced volunteers mentor first-timers. “Those that have been doing this for 15, 20 years, they’re mentoring those people that this is their first year,” Kloos said. “Our hope is that those people that this is their first year, that they will continue to coming back year after year.”

The report included files from CTV News Edmonton’s Curtis Goodrum.

Based on reporting by CTV News Edmonton.