Latest news with #Fournier
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
America's Dental Health Is in Trouble
Credit - Photo Illustration by Chloe Dowling (Source Image:) Not long ago, Dr. Suzanne Fournier saw a 16-year-old patient with a swollen face and difficulty breathing. Fournier, a dentist who practices at an urban hospital in Louisiana, had to extract six of the teen's teeth; he was eventually intubated and admitted to the intensive care unit because his airways had closed up. He survived, but Fournier is worried that there will be more children like him across the country who could come close to death because of the state of their oral health. 'I really worry that someone is going to die because they have an abscessed cavity that develops into an infection, and they won't be able to access care,' she says. In the U.S., 27% of adults don't have dental insurance, according to the most recent State of Oral Health Equity in America by the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of better oral health care. That's about 72 million Americans. By comparison, 9.5% of adults don't have health insurance. And though many children can get dental care through Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), low reimbursement rates mean that many dentists won't accept those insurance plans, leading to dental-care deserts across the country. Only about half of all children on Medicaid used any dental service in a year, according to an analysis by KFF. Now, dentists say they're worried that a perfect storm of public-policy changes could further worsen oral health across the country. Proposed cuts to Medicaid would mean that fewer people will be able access dental care, as federal government staffing purges target places like the prevention division of oral health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). What's more, as states including Florida and Utah vote to ban the addition of fluoride to drinking water and other states consider similar bans, dentists say the oral health of children and adults will suffer. 'We are already facing an oral health crisis,' says Melissa Burroughs, director of public policy for CareQuest. 'Medicaid cuts and water fluoridation rollbacks are the two biggest ways in which the oral health crisis is likely to be exacerbated.' America has long separated dental health from medical health. In most cases, Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older adults, doesn't cover dental care at all. Dental care through Medicaid varies tremendously from state to state, and states are not required to include dental coverage for adults, though they are required to include it for children. People going onto the Affordable Health Care marketplace for health plans can't purchase a dental insurance plan independently unless they also purchase a medical health plan. And subsidies offered to lower-income families on the health marketplace don't apply to dental plans. Even those people with dental insurance coverage often find that their plans don't cover much outside of a dental cleaning and check-up. About 40% of adults who have health insurance don't get regular dental care, according to one recent survey from the PAN Foundation, a health care advocacy organization. Not having dental health care can come with major consequences. Tooth decay and gum disease can exacerbate other health conditions and lead to heart disease, low birth weight in pregnancy, and even respiratory disease. Adults who present to emergency departments for tooth pain often end up with opioid prescriptions, which can lead to addiction. If children's teeth hurt, they may have trouble eating, leading to poor nutrition; if they're in pain, they're likely to sleep poorly. The CDC estimates that 34 million school hours are lost each year because of unplanned dental issues. Read More: The Science Behind Fluoride in Drinking Water 'You can find lots of studies that find associations between poor dental care and things like pneumonia and diabetes and heart disease,' says Dr. Lisa Simon, an internal medicine specialist who started her career as a dentist and then went to medical school to focus on oral health care. 'But even if you didn't think about any of those things, how important is it to have a central feature in our face look the way we want to, and not live with pain, and be able to take in nutrition?' Simon practices in Massachusetts, a state with one of the best dental safety nets in the country, and generous Medicaid benefits compared to those in other states. But she still sees people who have ended up in the ICU because of life-threatening sepsis from a tooth infection, patients who can't start chemotherapy because they can't pay to remove their infected teeth, people who won't even let her look into their mouths because they're so ashamed. In Massachusetts, fewer than one third of dentists accept Medicaid, which is close to the national average. 'I have gone down to Haiti nine times, and I have never seen the level of decay that I saw when I worked in Florida,' says Fournier, the Louisiana dentist, who previously practiced in Florida. She and other dentists worry that looming Medicaid cuts would exacerbate the problem; when state budgets are tight, dental care is often one of the first things to go. Massachusetts, for instance, cut Medicaid coverage for adult dental care in 2010 in the aftermath of the Great Recession; dental-related visits at a safety-net hospital increased 14% in the two years after the Medicaid cuts. Fournier recently testified before the Louisiana House of Representatives about Senate Bill 2, which sought to make it more difficult for localities to add fluoride to their drinking water. (In Louisiana, only about 38% of people are served by community water systems that fluoridate their water.) The bill was voted down in committee, but bills to restrict access to fluoride have been introduced in other states, including North Carolina, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Nebraska, according to CareQuest. Bills to ban the addition of fluoride in public drinking water have already passed in Utah and Florida. Some local counties have already voted in 2025 to ban fluoride independently. They are likely influenced by the Make America Healthy Again movement, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He has called fluoride a 'dangerous neurotoxin' and has said he wants the CDC to stop recommending fluoridation. In May, the FDA announced that it was trying to remove ingestible fluoride tablets from the market. Read More: What to Do If Fluoride Is Removed From Your Water Dentists predict long-term and costly health problems if communities continue to remove fluoride from the water. One recent study published in JAMA Health Forum found that the elimination of fluoride from the public water supply would be associated with a 7.5% increase in tooth decay and cost about $9.8 billion over five years. Places that have taken fluoride out of their water supply have seen an increase in dental problems; in Canada, for instance, Calgary removed fluoride in 2011, saw a significant increase in cavities, and is now reversing course and adding fluoride back in. Dr. Jeff Otley, a practicing dentist in Florida's panhandle, says he noticed when his region stopped fluoridating its water in 2014. He saw an increase in the number and severity of cavities in kids. The recent ban on fluoridation in Florida is going to affect kids and adults, he says, especially because Florida's Medicaid program offers barely any benefits for adults. 'We are going to have more disease, larger cavities, and some of these kids are going to have to go to the hospital because their cavities are going to be so bad,' he says. Oral health advocates say that in recent years, the country had been making some progress in improving access to dental care. For instance, a bill introduced in the Senate in March would require Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. And some states have, in the last few years, expanded Medicaid benefits to cover adult dental services. This can end up saving money in the long run; when Colorado chose to expand Medicaid adult dental benefits under the Affordable Care Act, one safety-net provider saw a 22% decrease in tooth extractions, according to CareQuest. When states increase how much dentists can be reimbursed through Medicaid, more dentists sign up as Medicaid providers, which has been shown to increase children's dental visits. But advocates say they're worried that all of this progress is now going to be reversed, and that oral health in the U.S., especially for children, is going to suffer. Read More: How Having a Baby Is Changing Under Trump 'I think we're at this balancing point where if we can keep things moving forward, there is the real opportunity for millions of people to get dental care,' says Simon, the Boston doctor and dentist. 'But we've seen this before—anytime there's a budget shortfall, dental care is the first thing on the chopping block.' The irony of this to many dentists is that providing people with preventative care can actually save states money over time. Children on Medicaid who received fluoride treatments saved between $88 and $156 each for their state programs, one study found. Water fluoridation is another preventative policy that saves money: In 2024, the CDC estimated that providing communities with fluoridated water for one year saves $6.5 billion in dental treatment costs and leads to 25% fewer cavities. But some of these preventative ideas aren't likely to go far, says Amy Niles, the chief mission officer of the Pan Foundation. 'In this country, we don't always embrace the importance and value of preventative care to prevent disease later on,' she says. Fournier, the Louisiana dentist, is relieved that her testimony and that of other medical professionals helped persuade Louisiana legislators to ditch the fluoride bill. But she still chafes at a health care system that makes it so hard to provide preventative care for oral health. 'Our goal is aligned with RFK Jr.'s, which is to make Americans healthy,' she said in her testimony. But, she says, America doesn't seem interested in waging a war on the No. 1 chronic disease in children: tooth decay. 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Time Magazine
a day ago
- Health
- Time Magazine
America's Dental Health Is in Trouble
Not long ago, Dr. Suzanne Fournier saw a 16-year-old patient with a swollen face and difficulty breathing. Fournier, a dentist who practices at an urban hospital in Louisiana, had to extract six of the teen's teeth; he was eventually intubated and admitted to the intensive care unit because his airways had closed up. He survived, but Fournier is worried that there will be more children like him across the country who could come close to death because of the state of their oral health. 'I really worry that someone is going to die because they have an abscessed cavity that develops into an infection, and they won't be able to access care,' she says. In the U.S., 27% of adults don't have dental insurance, according to the most recent State of Oral Health Equity in America by the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of better oral health care. That's about 72 million Americans. By comparison, 9.5% of adults don't have health insurance. And though many children can get dental care through Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), low reimbursement rates mean that many dentists won't accept those insurance plans, leading to dental-care deserts across the country. Only about half of all children on Medicaid used any dental service in a year, according to an analysis by KFF. Now, dentists say they're worried that a perfect storm of public-policy changes could further worsen oral health across the country. Proposed cuts to Medicaid would mean that fewer people will be able access dental care, as federal government staffing purges target places like the prevention division of oral health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). What's more, as states including Florida and Utah vote to ban the addition of fluoride to drinking water and other states consider similar bans, dentists say the oral health of children and adults will suffer. 'We are already facing an oral health crisis,' says Melissa Burroughs, director of public policy for CareQuest. 'Medicaid cuts and water fluoridation rollbacks are the two biggest ways in which the oral health crisis is likely to be exacerbated.' Why dental care is an afterthought America has long separated dental health from medical health. In most cases, Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older adults, doesn't cover dental care at all. Dental care through Medicaid varies tremendously from state to state, and states are not required to include dental coverage for adults, though they are required to include it for children. People going onto the Affordable Health Care marketplace for health plans can't purchase a dental insurance plan independently unless they also purchase a medical health plan. And subsidies offered to lower-income families on the health marketplace don't apply to dental plans. Even those people with dental insurance coverage often find that their plans don't cover much outside of a dental cleaning and check-up. About 40% of adults who have health insurance don't get regular dental care, according to one recent survey from the PAN Foundation, a health care advocacy organization. Not having dental health care can come with major consequences. Tooth decay and gum disease can exacerbate other health conditions and lead to heart disease, low birth weight in pregnancy, and even respiratory disease. Adults who present to emergency departments for tooth pain often end up with opioid prescriptions, which can lead to addiction. If children's teeth hurt, they may have trouble eating, leading to poor nutrition; if they're in pain, they're likely to sleep poorly. The CDC estimates that 34 million school hours are lost each year because of unplanned dental issues. 'You can find lots of studies that find associations between poor dental care and things like pneumonia and diabetes and heart disease,' says Dr. Lisa Simon, an internal medicine specialist who started her career as a dentist and then went to medical school to focus on oral health care. 'But even if you didn't think about any of those things, how important is it to have a central feature in our face look the way we want to, and not live with pain, and be able to take in nutrition?' Simon practices in Massachusetts, a state with one of the best dental safety nets in the country, and generous Medicaid benefits compared to those in other states. But she still sees people who have ended up in the ICU because of life-threatening sepsis from a tooth infection, patients who can't start chemotherapy because they can't pay to remove their infected teeth, people who won't even let her look into their mouths because they're so ashamed. In Massachusetts, fewer than one third of dentists accept Medicaid, which is close to the national average. 'I have gone down to Haiti nine times, and I have never seen the level of decay that I saw when I worked in Florida,' says Fournier, the Louisiana dentist, who previously practiced in Florida. She and other dentists worry that looming Medicaid cuts would exacerbate the problem; when state budgets are tight, dental care is often one of the first things to go. Massachusetts, for instance, cut Medicaid coverage for adult dental care in 2010 in the aftermath of the Great Recession; dental-related visits at a safety-net hospital increased 14% in the two years after the Medicaid cuts. Fluoride bans are worrying dentists Fournier recently testified before the Louisiana House of Representatives about Senate Bill 2, which sought to make it more difficult for localities to add fluoride to their drinking water. (In Louisiana, only about 38% of people are served by community water systems that fluoridate their water.) The bill was voted down in committee, but bills to restrict access to fluoride have been introduced in other states, including North Carolina, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Nebraska, according to CareQuest. Bills to ban the addition of fluoride in public drinking water have already passed in Utah and Florida. Some local counties have already voted in 2025 to ban fluoride independently. They are likely influenced by the Make America Healthy Again movement, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He has called fluoride a 'dangerous neurotoxin' and has said he wants the CDC to stop recommending fluoridation. In May, the FDA announced that it was trying to remove ingestible fluoride tablets from the market. Dentists predict long-term and costly health problems if communities continue to remove fluoride from the water. One recent study published in JAMA Health Forum found that the elimination of fluoride from the public water supply would be associated with a 7.5% increase in tooth decay and cost about $9.8 billion over five years. Places that have taken fluoride out of their water supply have seen an increase in dental problems; in Canada, for instance, Calgary removed fluoride in 2011, saw a significant increase in cavities, and is now reversing course and adding fluoride back in. Dr. Jeff Otley, a practicing dentist in Florida's panhandle, says he noticed when his region stopped fluoridating its water in 2014. He saw an increase in the number and severity of cavities in kids. The recent ban on fluoridation in Florida is going to affect kids and adults, he says, especially because Florida's Medicaid program offers barely any benefits for adults. 'We are going to have more disease, larger cavities, and some of these kids are going to have to go to the hospital because their cavities are going to be so bad,' he says. Out-of-reach solutions Oral health advocates say that in recent years, the country had been making some progress in improving access to dental care. For instance, a bill introduced in the Senate in March would require Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. And some states have, in the last few years, expanded Medicaid benefits to cover adult dental services. This can end up saving money in the long run; when Colorado chose to expand Medicaid adult dental benefits under the Affordable Care Act, one safety-net provider saw a 22% decrease in tooth extractions, according to CareQuest. When states increase how much dentists can be reimbursed through Medicaid, more dentists sign up as Medicaid providers, which has been shown to increase children's dental visits. But advocates say they're worried that all of this progress is now going to be reversed, and that oral health in the U.S., especially for children, is going to suffer. 'I think we're at this balancing point where if we can keep things moving forward, there is the real opportunity for millions of people to get dental care,' says Simon, the Boston doctor and dentist. 'But we've seen this before—anytime there's a budget shortfall, dental care is the first thing on the chopping block.' The irony of this to many dentists is that providing people with preventative care can actually save states money over time. Children on Medicaid who received fluoride treatments saved between $88 and $156 each for their state programs, one study found. Water fluoridation is another preventative policy that saves money: In 2024, the CDC estimated that providing communities with fluoridated water for one year saves $6.5 billion in dental treatment costs and leads to 25% fewer cavities. But some of these preventative ideas aren't likely to go far, says Amy Niles, the chief mission officer of the Pan Foundation. 'In this country, we don't always embrace the importance and value of preventative care to prevent disease later on,' she says. Fournier, the Louisiana dentist, is relieved that her testimony and that of other medical professionals helped persuade Louisiana legislators to ditch the fluoride bill. But she still chafes at a health care system that makes it so hard to provide preventative care for oral health. 'Our goal is aligned with RFK Jr.'s, which is to make Americans healthy,' she said in her testimony. But, she says, America doesn't seem interested in waging a war on the No. 1 chronic disease in children: tooth decay.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Unique sandstone sign revealed at grand opening for Tenino agriculture park
An 11-ton sandstone sign now marks the entrance to Tenino's new Agriculture Innovation Park on Old Highway 99 Southeast. 'I was so honored to be asked to do this,' said stone carver Dan Miller. 'And the other thing that gets me is that we managed to get Tenino sandstone here in Tenino at the Ag Park because it's so important.' The sign features a 10-ton quarry block base that's chiseled with the name and address of the park as well as a bull wheel and a cattle head. It's topped with an almost one-ton piece that spells out Tenino and features unique symbolism, Miller said. 'Part of the sign there is a mallet and paintbrush,' Miller said. 'The mallet symbolizes us, the stone trades and the long-running history of stone carving in Tenino. The paintbrush symbolizes the arts and the (Tenino) Creative District.' A camas plant adorns the sign as well. This blue and purple flowering bulb grows in local prairies and has been harvested by Native communities for countless generations. Lastly, undulating waves line the top piece to represent the area's unique Mima Mounds. Miller carved the locally sourced stone in about a month and presented it at a Wednesday grand opening event for the agriculture-focused business park. Elite Mechanical Services workers lifted a large box with a crane to reveal the sign to a crowd of onlookers. Prior to the reveal, the crowd gathered at Stone City Event Center, one of the park's first tenants in the north building. There, Thurston Economic Development Council (EDC) Executive Director Michael Cade introduced a series of people who had a hand in realizing this years-in-the-making project. 'Today is really about partnership,' Cade said. 'Today is really about identifying and recognizing the success, the lineage of history and the lineage of leadership that it takes to build something like this.' Current Thurston County Commissioner and former Tenino mayor Wayne Fournier had a lot to say about the project. 'Let me be clear: this is not just a business park,' Fournier said. 'This is not just a new building in a rural town. The Tenino Ag Park is more than an economic development project — it's a community-built blueprint for regional resilience, rural prosperity and food security.' Fournier said he and other city leaders first envisioned the park back when he was mayor of Tenino, an office he held from 2015 to 2023. Then the COVID-19 pandemic showed how vulnerable the community was to a breakdown in the food system, he said. 'It's about building local capacity to grow, to process, to distribute and to sustain ourselves,' Fournier said. He also gave a shout out to Aslan Meade, director of strategic alliances for the Thurston EDC. 'No one worked harder,' Fournier said. 'No one believed more deeply. Aslan, this community owes you a debt of gratitude.' Tenino Mayor Dave Watterson said the city appreciated the support from local, county, state and federal partners. He also took a moment to thank city staff for 'working very hard' on this project. 'We're a small community of 2,000 people and to do something like this is really just incredible,' Watterson said. Former Washington state Rep. J.T. Wilcox said he supported the project to help revitalize the once-vibrant agriculture economy in the region. 'A huge part of our history has just left,' Wilcox said. 'What I think happened is people that were my age who wanted to stay in farming kind of bought into the idea that our job is to produce as much food as we can, as cheaply as possible and feed the world. That's a great mission but almost everybody went out of business doing it.' Wilcox said he hopes producers realize they are in the food business rather than a farming or commodity business. 'If you're going to stay in business in a place that is not a low-cost producing area, you have to add value to your food and you have to find people that are willing to pay more for it,' Wilcox said. For the next phase of the Agriculture Innovation Park, Colvin Ranch intends to open a regional meat processing facility that should alleviate a bottleneck in their production. Currently, the ranch hauls its animals east to Pure Country Harvest, another family-run business in Moses Lake, for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved meat processing. Ranch owner Jennifer Colvin previously told The Olympian the meat processing facility will be open for business to other local ranchers in the region as well. Washington state Rep. Ed Orcutt said he is pleased with how the park has turned out so far. He said the meat processing facility will be critically important to bringing costs down for ranchers in the region. 'If you're in farming, you know that you're price takers, you're not price makers,' Orcutt said. 'All of the costs that are associated with producing whatever agricultural product you're producing, whether its crops or whether its livestock, all of those costs come out of your bottom line.' U.S. Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said she was honored to fight for this project alongside many others in the room. 'Projects like this is one of the reasons that we were able to bring back our federal tax dollars,' Perez said. 'Good people sat down, they didn't wait for somebody else to tell them that they had a problem and we've got a grant for you. … You all came to us with the solution and said this is a root cause, it's not a band aid, it's a root cause that we're addressing here.' Colvin Ranch Provisions, a new storefront for the ranch next door, opened in the south building Wednesday morning. The store sells beef products, HotBabe Hotsauce and Wild Heart Sipping Vinegar as well as candles, soaps and lotions. Jennifer Colvin said more food will fill their shelves within the next couple of weeks. 'This is really about focusing on our local producers and local food,' Colvin said. 'I really want to make this a destination for the place to get the best locally made food in the region.' HotBabe Hotsauce also recently moved into the south building. Rather than having a storefront, the business has a production kitchen right behind Colvin Ranch Provisions. In addition to Stone City Event Center, the Tenino-owned north building houses Simply Organic Café and Catering. The City of Tenino, Thurston EDC Center for Business and Innovation and private investor Dragonwheel Investment Group partnered to create the 13-acre park. They were supported by the Port of Olympia, Thurston County, Washington State University Thurston County Extension, Northwest Agriculture Business Center and Experience Olympia and Beyond, according to their website. Cafe, event center open at new Tenino agriculture and business park. Take a look inside
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Defenceman Fournier re-signs for Cardiff Devils
Gleason Fournier has signed a new deal with Cardiff Devils. It will be the Canadian defenceman's seventh campaign with Devils having returned to the Welsh capital at the start of the 2024-25 season. Fournier, 33, originally joined midway through the 2015-16 season, moving from the Alaska Aces in North America. He established himself as one of the best defencemen in the history of the team. Fournier's best season came in 2018-19 when he led all EIHL (Elite Ice Hockey League) defencemen in goals, assists and points - putting up 27 goals and 54 assists for 81 points in 72 games. Devils sign American defenceman Estes from Odense Cardiff Devils re-sign forward Olischefski Ex-GB boss Thompson takes over as Cardiff Devils head coach It led to Fournier being voted on to the EIHL's First All-Star Team and named EIHL Defenceman of the Year. He left Devils in 2019-20 when the Covid pandemic cut the season short and spent four years playing across Europe. "Gleason has been an elite player in this league for many years, I'm thrilled to be working with him this upcoming season," said Devils head coach Paul Thompson. "We will be relying on him heavily in all situations. We are lucky to have him in a Devils jersey once again."
Hamilton Spectator
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Junior Broadway comes to Grande Prairie
Grande Prairie's latest theatre group is helping create the next generation of local thespians. Grande Prairie Children's Theatre (GPCT) has become a hit on and off the stage as it continues to expand after only a couple of years in the community. 'I've always wanted to do the children's theatre,' said Nikki Fournier, GPCT founder and director. She founded the company in July 2023 with 32 students: It has grown to more than 140. 'Growing up, there was nothing like this for me, and I was a big musical theatre fan,' she said. She noted other theatre groups in the community are more geared toward adults and teenagers with limited roles for children. The days of school productions are limited today. GPCT had its first production last year with The Little Mermaid Jr., which sold out in five days. This year, the theatre is in the final stages of preparation for its second production, Frozen Jr., which will debut May 23 at the Douglas J. Cardinal Theatre at Northwestern Polytechnic. 'Our mission statement is to bring quality musical theatre education to the youth and children in our community,' said Fournier. 'All of my teachers are professionals in their scopes of things, so the students are getting quality education in music, acting and dancing, and I think that's really important, and I think that contributes to the quality of our productions at the end of the year.' Fournier herself has even received some training in New York for Broadway teaching. The students hitting the stage next week are between eight and 18, but the junior title does not take away from the show's spectacle, says Fournier. 'We try to use a lot of things that were in the actual Broadway version of Frozen, so our Sven is basically the size of a miniature pony, and he's a puppet played by one of our students. 'Olaf is also a larger puppet played by a student so we've added puppeteering into our classes, and then we also have students who help make props and things and some costume design stuff.' This year's production includes over 100 costumes for Frozen Jr., which took a team of volunteers to create. 'The vast majority of our costumes this year were handmade,' said Fournier, noting that anything bought off the rack is then custom-tailored to the actor. She said it takes about nine months for everything to come together, from learning lines, songs, choreography, and the changes made due to props or costuming. The whole time, the children put in a ton of effort. Fournier says the students meet twice a week, with the odd long Sunday. 'The point of the program isn't the show,' she said. 'The point of the program is what you learn in class and how you incorporate that into your character for the show.' She said the snow chorus is an ensemble representing the protagonist's, Elsa, powers as they grow. 'Their costumes morph, their choreography morphs into bigger stuff as the show progresses, and they're a super integral part of the show. 'They don't say lines, but they're super important, so it's teaching kids that no matter what role you get, you don't have to be Elsa or Anna to be valuable in a production.' Fournier started doing musical theatre summer camps where children would learn an entire musical in 10 days and then perform it. The pandemic shut down those projects. She still had the dream of one day making it a year-round program. Last year, she was able to begin again with 32 students out of the Forbes Presbyterian Church, but they quickly outgrew the space. By fall, they had moved into their downtown location with about 4,000 square feet already beginning to fill up with set pieces, costumes, and a sound recording booth as the theatre expands its classes. GPCT offers programming for children of any age under 18; it has a Broadway Babies program for ages 0 to four which 'introduces babies and toddlers to the world of musical movement. The Kinder Broadway program is aimed at students aged five to eight, while other programs -such as Intro to Animation - include teaching voice acting for video games or animation. 'We're hoping to get into some costume design classes eventually.' The theatre involves the other classes in its big production, with the Kinder Broadway students performing during the intermission of Frozen Jr. Additionally, GPTC does a Christmas production where all the students get to perform. 'We would love to keep up the full-year program and do one big show every year, potentially two in the future,' said Fournier. She says the GPCT's success comes from the need for such a program in the community. 'The amount of students interested and wanting to join the program made it all possible.' She said the talent of the students is incredible. 'Some of them have never sung in their lives, and they are absolutely incredible and so eager and willing to learn.' Registration is already filling up as another big year is anticipated. Its Stage Stars program for its big production will include two groups preparing for a large show. 'They will all perform the same production, but it will be two different shows.' Registration and more information is available at . Frozen Jr. tickets are available through Bonnetts Energy Centre.
