Christmas at Shepherds of Good Hope

This past Tuesday was Christmas, and here at Shepherds of Good Hope it is quite the occasion.  I arrived with my son, Josh and we had a fantastic time greeting everyone.

 

We had a choir perform and just like every year, we had our very own Santa there!

Christmas Lunch at Good Day Workshop

Yesterday I had the pleasure of enjoying a delicious turkey lunch with all the fixins with the gang from Good Day Workshop.

We had a fantastic time with staff, volunteers, donors and participants.

I must thank the Delta Hotel for serving the meal and cooking 15 turkeys from the Good Day Workshop.  They also made delicious dressing and Gravy.  Thanks to Sister Maureen, Divine Infant CWL and friends of Ruth and Bob Benwell.

It was absolutely fantastic! Thank you!

Having a great day with CBC

Today is going just fantastic!  It's only 1:33pm and CBC has raised over $50,000 for Shepherds of Good Hope!

It's absolutely great to see the community of Ottawa coming together to show support for the most vulnerable people in our city, especially at this time of year when our clients need to know they haven't been forgotten.

We kicked off the day out at Tunney's Pasture on a double decker OCTranspo bus.  I had a wonderful time and we managed to fit 3 musical acts on there as well.  Jim Watson also made an appearance to draw the name for Leonard Cohen tickets to one lucky donor!

Here is Robin from Ottawa Morning and I outside this morning :)

After the show, I made my way down to the studio to join Kathleen Petty in the studio for Ontario Today to discuss what makes our donors so important.

 

Such an exciting day, and it's not even over yet!

2012 CBC Charity Drive

We are ever so grateful here at Shepherds of Good Hope for the amount of support we have received from CBC over these past couple of weeks!

There has been constant coverage on CBC Ottawa about all we do here at Shepherds of Good Hope and we couldn't be more thankful to all of those involved!

Tomorrow will be completely dedicated to raising funds for all of our programs and I am extremely excited to be a part of it!

To kick it off, I will be joining the Ottawa Morning gang at Tunney's Pasture on a double decker OCTranspo bus at 5:30am.  Make sure you tune in to CBC 91.5 at 6:20am to hear my scheduled interview.

Thanks to all of our supporters and thank you to CBC.  Looking forward to spending the day with you!

My Birthday at Shepherds of Good Hope

Today is my birthday and I decided to celebrate by sponsoring today's lunch here at the Shepherds of Good Hope soup kitchen!

My son, Josh, joined me and other volunteers as we prepared a special treat for our clients. 

We prepared hamburgers with gravy and sauteed onions, as well as roasted potatoes.

I thought it would be a fantastic idea to spend my birthday sharing a meal between my own family and the Shepherds of Good Hope family.

If you would like to sponsor a lunch at Shepherds of Good Hope, please contact me at 613-789-8210 ext. 247 or asilverman@shepherdsofgoodhope.com

Christmas Trees at Letrim!

Yesterday I stopped by Letrim to judge some decorated Christmas trees and pick up some fantastic donations from the CFS Letrim Golf Tournament and the sponsors Performance Mazda and Maplesoft Technologies.

It really means a lot to us here at Shepherds of Good Hope to have the support of the community.  This time of year is the time to let our clients know how much they really mean to us and that we are here to help,

Here I am recieving a cheque from Cody Moss.

Here are some of the wonderful trees that were on display!

And my personal favourite was this particular tree.  All of the decorations told a different story about the troupe that decorated it!

The Cowan Foundation Supports Shepherds of Good Hope Soup Kitchen

It is 365 days a year that Shepherds of Good Hope serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening snacks to men, women and youth in our community. This year – over 700,000 meals were served through the Soup Kitchen located on Murray Street. Thanks to a grant of $32,000 by The Cowan Foundation, there will be no stoppage in service. 
 
The Cowan Foundation has stepped up to support the desperately needed replacement of the floors and tables in the soup kitchen, to ensure that those in need in our community can continue to access this important service.

“Our business is helping client’s manage risk. When we heard that the floors were cracked with broken ceramic tiles, and that the table tops could provide a health risk, we felt it was important to donate to this initiative, “explained Jason McCormick, Principal at Cowan Insurance Group’s Ottawa Office. “People receiving meals at the soup kitchen, are now eating in better, safer environment – and that matters to our community.”

“We are so appreciative of the generosity of The Cowan Foundation, said Paul Soucie, Executive Director of Shepherds of Good Hope. This grant will change people’s lives.”

Every day over 1600 people come through the doors of Shepherds of Good Hope looking for food, clothing or shelter.

 

Here is Jason McCormick and Debra Murphy from Cowan Insurance Group presenting the wonderful grant to me in our very own soup kitchen! 

 

1st Annual Chili Cookoff!

Today was an exciting day over at the shelter because we held our 1st Annual Shepherds of Good Hope Chili Cookoff!

Clients in the programs as well as staff made 8 different kinds of Chili in an effort to be declared the winner!

The programs that participated were 208 St. Andrews, The Oaks, Men's Shelter, Hope Living, Soup Kitchen, Hope Outreach, Wet Program and Administration.

208 St. Andrews

The Oaks

Wet Program

Men's Shelter

Soup Kitchen

Outreach

Hope Living

Administration

 

We had four judges, one of them was Executive Director of Shepherds of Good Hope, Paul Soucie.

 

After the votes were all tallied, we ended up with 3 winners!

 

Third Place went to Wet Program

Second Place was Men's Shelter

 

 

And First Place went to The Oaks!

 

Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to all programs that participated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Client BBQ in October



Yesterday we had a fantastic dinner here at Shepherds of Good Hope! Rohr Chabad Student Network of Ottawa was kind enough to lend a hand to their community by serving up a delicious BBQ!

 

All of the clients enjoyed all the fantastic burgers, hot dogs and salads.

 

A special thanks also goes out to Creative Kosher Catering for providing the amazing salads!

 

 

For more information, please visit:

http://www.chabadstudentnetwork.com/

and

http://www.creativekosher.com

 



Happy Thanksgiving!

This past Monday was our annual Thanksgiving feast at Shepherds of Good Hope.  We had 480 people stop by to enjoy a meal with us!

We also welcomed Yasir Naqvi, MPP from Ottawa Centre as he helped serve the meal to our clients. Thanksgiving lunch time at Shepherds of Good Hope started at 11 :00 am and ran to 1 pm – an hour longer than would normally take place.  This special meal consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turnips, gravy, cranberry sauce, juice, coffee, apple and pumpkin pie.

It was a wonderful feast and we were pleased to have Mr. Naqvi come down, meet our clients, volunteers and staff and help out on a busy Thanksgiving Monday.

 

Thanksgiving day is a special time for Shepherds of Good Hope, clients, staff and volunteers.  On this occasion, the community comes together in preparation and enjoyment of a wonderful home cooked meal.

McLean Insurance

On Tuesday, September 25th, we had a great group of people stop by to visit the programs, help prepare food and they even left a very generous donation.

McLean Insurance Protection Team was having a conference for insurance brokers all over North America this week.  They decided to pop by and help with the food preparation.  Here's some great pictures!

They made a very generous donation of $1000.00, but when they came on the tour and saw the work we do for our clients, they DOUBLED their donation and made it $2000.00!

Thank you so much for stopping by, we loved having you!

If you want to know more about McLean Insurance, check out their website www.mcleaninsurancelive.com

AGM Award Winners

We held our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday night at St. Pius school.  The turn out was great and it was wonderful to see all of our staff, volunteers, board members and supporters in one room.

The highlight of the evening for me was handing out the awards to some amazing people.

The award winners are:

Elementary Achievement Award - Corpus Christi School (Principal Michael Schrieder)

 

High School Achievement Award - Holy Trinity Catholic School (Principal Jennifer Oake)

 

 

Shepherds of Good Hope Graduate Student Volunteer Award - Athiep Lual

(Accepting the award on Athiep's behalf is Ms. Bonnie Campbell, Principal of Notre Dame High School)

 

 

Margaret Quinn Memorial Award - Paul Power (Shepherds of Good Hope Staff)

 



Shepherds of Good Hope Service Award - Jasmin Fourges (Shepherds of Good Hope Staff)

 

 

 

Agnes Devlin Volunteer Award - Irene Skoulaki

 



Shepherds of Good Hope Community Award - Patrick Dussault, American Express

Shepherds of Good Hope Partnership Award - Ottawa Catholic School Board, Julian Hanlon, Director of Education

Shepherds of Good Hope Media Award - Kelly Egan

I would like to congratulate each winner on their award.  You have really proven to be a valuable asset to the most vulnerable people in Ottawa. 

Hope to see you all again next year!