'Food security is the number one thing': New Commercial Drive centre offers inner-city youth a safe place to land

A new East Vancouver youth centre is offering children and teens a hub to connect through food, music and learn valuable life skills. 

The Landing Youth Centre Foundation, formerly the Face of Today, moved into its home at the We Got You Youth Centre on East 1st and Commercial early this year. After years of preparation and renovations, The Landing is now moving ahead, providing a range of services, programs, and community to youth in need.

“I’m proud of the centre because it’s unique in the sense that it has everything a kid would need,” said Kasondra Herrendorf Cohen, founder of the We Got You Youth Centre and CEO of the Herrendorf Family Foundation, which serves as landlord and grantor to The Landing.

The 10,000-square-foot venue features several lounge areas, a full gym, locker rooms, recording studio, basketball court, and commercial-grade kitchen complete with four on-site chefs. 

Through its various partners, The Landing also offers tutoring, leadership and life-skills mentorship programs, financial literacy classes, and free clinical counselling sessions. 

About 200 youth access the centre weekly, with anywhere from 20 to 50 kids expected to turn up on a given day for after-school programs. 

“Having everything under one roof and having that level of community and camaraderie… [it’s important] for kids to know that even if their home life might not feel secure, they have a safe place to be and our staff is there for them.” 

Conditions needed to thrive

Most of the youth at the centre are between the ages of 12 and 18, and according to their 2025 impact report, 99 per cent of those who access their facilities are BIPOC. 

The majority (86 per cent of boys and 77 per cent of girls) live in social housing, and half are from single-parent or guardian households. 

The team works with Vancouver’s most under-resourced schools to identify and refer students who may be a good fit for their programs, with most kids living in Strathcona, the Downtown Eastside and Grandview Woodlands.

Census data shows that in the Vancouver East riding, nearly 4,000 or one in four children in the area, live in poverty. 

“If your material conditions are sub-optimal, then you won’t really be able to make it past that in order to thrive,” said Meta Athanassiou, director of Youth and Community Programs at The Landing, adding that the wrap around support that they offer through seasonal giveaways like their Holiday Hamper event and emergency microgrant services is a crucial part of their work. 

“Some… things we’ve been able to help cover in the past are phone bills, replacing a broken washer or dryer, dentist visits and flights home for things like unexpected funerals,” she said. 

“Food security is the number one thing”

While many of the amenities and programs are worthy of note, for Herrendorf Cohen, the most crucial addition to the space is their kitchen.

“Food security is really the number one thing; that’s why we created a commercial-grade kitchen,” she said. “A lot [of these kids] don’t eat the whole day before they come to the centre.” 

Food security is a rapidly growing issue in the city. BC Food Banks report a 79 per cent increase in the number of visits since 2019, with children representing nearly a third of all clients. 

At its previous location, the Landing staff estimated distributing upwards of 20,000 snacks per year. Now, through partnerships with organizations like Moms Offering More and Vancouver Food Runners, the team is also able to offer hot dinners most nights of the week. 

“Every single day, they …have snacks and dinner five days a week. They’re getting nourished, and they're eating really good quality food,” said Herrendorf Cohen. 

Their meals are sourced through environmentally sustainable “rescued food,” and dinner menus run the gamut from pasta, curries, dumplings and even salmon chowder, which Landing staff said was a surprise hit amongst the kids. 

Youth are even encouraged to get involved in food preparation through cooking classes and special events, such as a recent on-site sushi-making workshop.

But the Landing also facilitates the youth’s creativity beyond the culinary arts. On the lower floor, in a room decorated floor to ceiling with vinyl records is the centre’s recording studio, equipped with a professional-grade podcasting booth, multiple guitars, bass and a full drum kit. 

Youth in the program are paired up with a sound engineer who teaches them the ins-and-outs of mixing their own projects. 

“It’s been really amazing to see some of the youth now considering doing that for their career, and they would never have had exposure to that,” added Alison McKenzie, director of Fellowship & Curriculum.

From Face of Today to The Landing

Coming from a philanthropic family, Herrendorf Cohen founded Face of Today in 2009 with a vision of engaging youth aged 16 to 18, a demographic she “felt was really being left behind.” 

After her father passed away, Cohen said she became interested in legacy building and eventually founded the Herrendorf Family Foundation in 2018. She decided to channel her efforts into making sure kids from all backgrounds “had every opportunity to make them feel like anything is possible.”  

The Face of Today youth centre in Gastown opened in 2019, but it was not long before Herrendorf Cohen began to dream bigger. 

She said the idea to expand to a larger space first came to her in 2022. Before long, the building was purchased, rezoned, and the team launched a wave of renovations on the space that had previously housed a church and shelter. 

Four years and nearly $11 million later, the We Got You Youth Centre was completed, becoming The Landing’s newest home, and officially opening its doors at 1648 East 1st Avenue. 

Today, nearly all of the renovations have been completed. Though the walls are still bare, plans are in the works to fill the space with artwork, including commissioning an Indigenous artist to paint murals throughout.

“We plan to have the kids involved [in the art and decorations] as well,” said Dori-Anna Tomei,  senior director of programs with the Herrendorf Family Foundation. “Right now [the kids have been] comparing [the centre] to Kim Kardashian’s house, which is great but not necessarily kid-oriented, so we want to make the space look like it's theirs.” 

“Like being an auntie to the entire neighbourhood” 

While access to the centre technically caps at age 18, youth often return to work as mentors and part-time staff, McKenzie said. Once the kids graduate from high school, they can also receive access to scholarships and grant funding for continuing education through the Herrendorf Foundation. 

“There’s something really special about knowing a young person from Grade 6. Then you watch them graduate, they go off to university, and you get to keep talking to them,” she said. 

For Tomei, working with the Herrendorf Foundation has allowed her to foster nearly decade-long connections with kids in the community. “[Working here is] like being a fun auntie to the entire neighbourhood,” added Tomei. “Once you’re ours, you stay ours.”