Learning from the actions of children

I make it a point to blog every time someone tells me about another group of children making a wonderful donation to Shepherds of Good Hope. At this time of year, I could probably blog several times a week.

This week, a big thank you goes out to the students of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Orleans. On Tuesday, this group of Grade 1-6 students gathered in their gym and made over 2,000 sandwiches -- 2,090 to be precise. It took them less than a morning.

Sandwiches are so important to us. Although the soup kitchen is open for three meals a day as well as an evening drop-in, hunger doesn't follow a schedule. At any time of the day, someone could come to our doors, hungry and cold, and ask for a sandwich. Thanks to schools like St. Francis of Assisi, we have a sandwich to give them. During our evening drop-in, which is for clients as well as anyone living in the community, we make sandwiches and soup everyone.

There is a lesson here to learn from the students. First, it doesn't take a lot of work to make an impact. Secondly, the children don't question what the impact is of making sandwiches or making some other type of donation. They simply do what they can to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. They are also very eager to soak up what knowledge they can about homelessness. They want to know why people are homeless. They want to know what we do to help the homeless people. More importantly, they want to know what they can do to help the homeless. We can all learn from these children.

In the photo are some of the students who made the sandwiches. Thank you taking them all out to our truck. I know Don and Steve appreciated the extra help.

Sandwich donation from St. Theresa's Catholic School

Wow! The two Grade 6 classes at St. Theresa's Catholic School outdid themselves this year. The students made more than 600 sandwiches for Shepherds of Good Hope. This is the power of youth. Here are a few photos from this morning's event at the school.

It's award season for schools

Even though school has only been in session for a few weeks, it's time to honour two schools with the Ottawa Catholic School Board.

At our annual general meeting Tuesday evening, we celebrated the fundraising efforts of St. Francis of Assisi and Sacred Heart High School. The students of St. Francis of Assisi, an elementary school, made more than 2,000 sandwiches last year and also donated several bags of clothing.

Sacred Heart students were honoured for a third year. Their students made more than 5,500 sandwiches last year and also volunteered in our soup kitchen.

Congratulations to Sacred Heart and St. Francis of Assisi. We appreciate very much the effort you made to help us care for Ottawa's homeless men and women.

This year is shaping up to be another banner year. We're barely a month into the school year and several schools have asked about tours and presentations while others have already indicated they are doing food drives in time for Thanksgiving.

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.

St. Clare Sandwich Day Continues to Grow

When St. Clare Catholic Elementary School let us know that they were planning on doing sandwich day again this year, we immediately let the soup kitchen know about the date. Last year St. Clare's provided over 800 sandwiches and so we wanted the soup kitchen volunteers to know that they could focus their energy on other tasks for that day.

Well St. Clare managed to out do themselves by making 1027 sandwiches and providing a host of other food all of which will go towards feeding hungry men and women both at the soup kitchen and at some of our supportive living facilities.

We are so grateful to the students and staff at St. Clare's for this incredible bounty and for continuing the tradition of giving back to Ottawa's most vulnerable.

Holy Trinity School

Today on my regular visit with all of our kitchen volunteers, I met some new friends,  the kids from Holy Trinity School.  They came in to volunteer and make sandwiches for our clients.

Thanks for helping out the hungry in your community!

Beth Shalom

On Sunday a large and enthusiastic group of volunteers from Congregation Beth Shalom came to help out in the soup kitchen. We were extremely grateful for all their help as the kitchen was particularly busy with hungry clients trying to warm up from the cold. From the time the doors opened till everyone was served the group hustled around with constant smiles. A big thank you to everyone in the group.

 

Target Canada

Over the last year Target Canada has been an incredible community partner making countless donations of food, clothing and other much needed goods to various Shepherds of Good Hope facilities. So we were very excited when they asked us if a team could come volunteer in the soup kitchen and meet some of the clients that they are helping to support. The team was working so hard at peeling potatoes and making sandwiches we had a tough time pulling them away in order to take a photo!

 

A big thank you to everyone at Target Canada for making community a priority.

If you ever want to volunteer or learn more about the programs at Shepherds of Good Hope please contact Judy.

Volunteering in Support Services

Today we had some guests from Public Safety Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign. We are very grateful for their contribution to the work we do and we all appreciate their efforts.

 

Helping out in the clothing program



Making sandwiches for hungry men and women

Washing off carts in the parking lot

Helping out in the parking lot



Thank you for all of your help today!


 

Helping the Hungry

Yesterday I went to visit Holy Redeemer School with Shepherds of Good Hope CEO, Dierdre Freiheit.  The kids had a huge morning planned where they would make sandwiches for the hungry and homeless.  Mayor Jim Watson and Councillor Allan Hubley were also there to help make sandwiches and visit the kids.

Later on that evening I attended the Catholic Education Foundation of Ottawa's Gala.  Such a lovely evening for a community partner that means so much to us. 

Thank you so much to  Catholic Education Foundation of Ottawa, Ottawa Catholic School Board and Holy Redeemer School!  You really make a difference in the lives of those in our care!

To read more about this event on Country 101.1's website click HERE

To make a donation to Shepherds of Good Hope, click HERE

Kids that Give

Meet Brayden Davidson, Jonah Longpre and Ashley Matheson.  They are dedicated students from Sacred Heart High School.  This is their first time serving at Shepherds of Good Hope while contributing to their community service hours.  Under the tutelage of Chaplain Mary Defayette, students have been coming to serve at Shepherds of Good Hope once a month for 6 years.

 

 

Thanks kids!

 

If you would like to find out more about our partnership with schools, please click HERE

 

 



Volunteering in the Kitchen

As part of National Volunteer Week, we've been asking some of our wonderful volunteers about their experience with Shepherds of Good Hope. 

Today I popped into the kitchen as they were preparing pork chops and gravy with garlic bread for lunch and spoke with our chef of the day, Chris.



We are absolutely thrilled that volunteering with us is so meaningful!

Here are some other great shots of Thursday's lunch volunteers!

Thanks for all you do!

 

 

 

For more info on volunteering with us, please CLICK HERE

Thank You to Our Wonderful Volunteers!

National Volunteer week is April 6-12, 2014.  Shepherds of Good Hope would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our dedicated and hardworking volunteers who have given so much of themselves to help the less fortunate in our community.  Our volunteers are the backbone of our organization and without them we could not provide for the over 1600 men and women who come through our doors everyday.

For information on how you can volunteer CLICK HERE

Bobby's Table

Today I went to visit Bobby's Table on Montreal Road to present them with a certificate for their donations to our soup kitchen.  On a frequent basis, we always receive donations of delicious sandwiches and salads from Bobby's Table and it's such a wonderful treat for our clients.

A huge thank you to Bobby and Bill at Bobby's Table.  I can't wait to stop by for lunch!

Presenting a certificate to Bobby (L) and Bill (R).