Charitable Donations

Playful Pastimes is a charity-based initiative focused on promoting mental health and advancing brain research for the greater good of all. Proceeds from our puzzle sales are donated to support mental health and brain research through Youth Mental Health and Brain Research Foundation.

Playful Pastimes supports Youth Mental Health Canada based out of Hamilton Ontario. YMHC is a community-based, youth-led charitable non-profit organization focused on youth, family and community engagement for mental health education, support, advocacy, and change.

YMHC advocates for needs-based, culturally sensitive, trauma-informed mental health supports, services and educational accommodations and direct funding to families to support young people with chronic mental health disabilities. Their philosophy aligns with the Playful Pastimes brand because we firmly believe simple pastimes like puzzles promote good mental health.

Puzzling provides many benefits to the brain and a greater understanding of how the brain works will contribute to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of disorders of the brain such as dementia and depression. By donating to Brain Canada, Playful Pastimes supports some of Canada’s boldest explorers and driving brain research forward.

Located in Montreal, Quebec they play a unique and invaluable role as the national convener of a community of those who support and advance brain research with 90% of the funding going directly to research. For over 20 years, Brain Canada’s purpose has been to understand the brain, in health and illness, with a One Brain approach – where the brain is a single, complex system with commonalities across neurological disorders, mental illnesses, and brain injuries, rather than as a collection of siloed diseases.