Students getting a charitable education

One of the fun parts of my job is getting a chance to meet with so many students who come to Shepherds of Good Hope for a tour.

Regular readers of my blog know I'm a big believer in everyone getting a firsthand look at what we do. We're very well known for being a shelter and a soup kitchen. Food and shelter are indeed two very important things Ottawa's most vulnerable men and women need. But we are so much more and over our 32 years, we have moved beyond a soup kitchen.

Typically students come for a tour because they want to do something for us. They want to give back to those most in need, especially as we get closer to the holidays. They visit because they want to see the impact their donation is going to have. Quite often it inspires them to exceed their original goal.

Depending on the size of the class, students get a tour of the soup kitchen, the food and grocery program and we also give a short presentation on our other services.

This morning students from Pierre Savard School and Immaculata High School were here. Thank you so much everyone for coming out.

Food donations dip in the summer

I hope everyone had a great long weekend. It ended with a little bit of rain throughout the day Monday, but overall, it was a nice weekend.

Now it's back to work. Back to our routines. And one of the routines I hope to get people into this summer is to remember to donate food. I appreciate all the donations we get, but the summer is always a challenge and this summer is no different.

At Shepherds of Good Hope, we open our grocery program twice a week to the community. We're really the only Lowertown food bank. I always know when it's grocery day because of the lineup going out the doors and into the parking lot.

The Ottawa Food Bank does supply us and all community food banks with food. But they, too, get hit with the summer donation slowdown.

So what are we looking for? We're looking for non-perishable goods, things like coffee, tea, dried pasta, pasta sauce, canned vegetables, soups and fruits, dried beans, rice and lentils.

Other popular items are things like toilet paper, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant.

Not only do we hand out food twice a week, but we also use some of it to feed the men and women who come to our soup kitchen. No one is in danger of not getting fed, but as you can tell from the photos below, some of our shelves are starting to look a little bare.

So how can you help? If you have some additional canned goods or any of the above mentioned items that you would like to donate, please drop by our 233 Murray St. location. In the back parking lot is a convenient drop-off window. We appreciate anything you can give. Even just one bag of groceries will make a huge difference in the life of someone who relies on us in order to feed their family.

For more information, here's a link to our donation page.

The kids are all right

We’ve always heard the axiom “Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders.” Or we’ve heard some variation of that. And sometimes when it’s said in a room full of adults, there’s a bit of good-nature eye rolling when we think of what today’s youth is getting up to, the music they listen to and the activities that preoccupy their time. It happened to us when we were young, too.

But I can tell you from experience there are thousands of kids across the city who are going to be great leaders one day. In fact, they are already taking the lead.

Recently, the elementary students at St. Thomas More School made 300 sandwiches for the Shepherds of Good Hope. They also collected three crates of canned goods. That’s well over 100 cans of food that we can use in our soup kitchen or in our twice-a-week food bank. For the hundreds of men and women who rely on a good meal at the Shepherds, there is nothing better than a freshly homemade sandwich at lunch or in the evening when people drop in.

As students get ready to enter their final month of school, I want to thank all of the students who took the time this year with their school to donate sandwiches, goods, and most importantly, their time.

With students like these, I have a lot of faith in our future leaders.