There is a John Howard Society Office in North Bay.

Sara Jane Berghammer is in charge of the North Bay office.

She says they already have a couple of programs at the North Bay Jail.

She says one is a book distribution program and she offers a program called staying out.

Berghammer says she travels to the North Bay jail once a month from Sudbury to deliver that.

Berghammer says the advantage of having a permanent office is they’ll now able to make funding applications to expand their services locally.

She says they are in the Low Income People Involvement of Nipissing location on Main Street and are just getting started.

Berghammer says the office will be open 1 day a week to start and they’re hoping to get volunteers to come in and open the office more regularly.

Paula Osmok is the executive director of the John Howard Society of Ontario.

She says they’ve been getting calls since 2002 to have a more of a presence here and are very excited to develop and identify programs that are needed in North Bay.