A donation of barbecues

I love my job. I love it especially when I can thank people for all the help they give us. I love it when I get photos like the one below.

Thanks to the generosity of  Harvey Steinwald of the Knights of Pythias .... , we now have two new barbecues. These will last us for years to come and we can use them at all of our locations. In the summer, it's a treat for our clients to get something a little different from what they might get in the soup kitchen. Although we try to have interesting and nutritious meals for them, there's nothing like the treat of a hamburger or a hot dog off the grill.

We'll also put these barbecues to good use when we hold our volunteer appreciation barbecue.

Thank you so much, Harvey. I know the clients will enjoy a lot of good food thanks to your donation.

Giving hope to homeless women in Ottawa

When I talk about the services we provide for women, a lot of people are surprised we are the only homeless shelter that accepts women. Other shelters will feed them, but they don't give them a place to sleep. There are reasons for that, but at Shepherds of Good Hope, we made a decision we were going to be there for Ottawa's most in-need people and gender wasn't going to be an issue.

There are several different programs we run for women. We have a 60-bed shelter for women and transgendered individuals who are 18 years of age or older.

While they're here, the women have access to medical staff, counsellors and outreach workers. We also have a women's special care unit. It's a 16-bed unit for women with more challenging medical issues.

Although those are dedicated services to women, all of the programs we offer to Ottawa's homeless population are there for men and women. For example, there are women in our Worker Program. There are women in TESP.

Finally, we have Brigid's Place, a housing first facility with room for 11 women. These are women who can live independently but still need support services in place.

Like all of our programs, we staff them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you want to learn more about the services we provide to women or book a tour, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me. 613-789-8210, ext 247. Email: asilverman@shepherdsofgoodhope.com.

Volunteer appreciation barbecue

 It was a great day Saturday to hold a barbecue.

This time, the volunteers got to be in front of the serving line instead of behind it. It was our chance to thank the many volunteers who donate hours and hours to our organization. Without them, Shepherds of Good Hope would not be able to deliver the services we do to Ottawa's homeless population.

Did you know that there are more than 400 volunteers with us? They are everywhere from the soup kitchen, the food and clothing program, at every one of our facilities, They work in the community gardens, they teach literacy, they hold yoga classes, they do karaoke. I could blog every day for a month and still not touch on every activity volunteers are involved in.

Sue Alcott, our manager of volunteers, and Stephanie Brazolot, our volunteer coordinator, did a great job organizing the barbecue. A thank you also goes out to the staff members who turned out to help serve the food.

Volunteering at Shepherds is a special thing. You are working with some of the most in-need men and women in the city. You get to meet lots of people with similar interests and it's no surprise that volunteers at Shepherds develop life-long friendships with each other.

If you're interested in volunteering, please check out our volunteer page.

Hidden Harvest Ottawa delivers apples

I've blogged a few times about how I'm always amazed at the type of donations we get from people, local businesses and organizations. It doesn't matter the size of the gift. I'm just so grateful that when people have something to give they think of Shepherds of Good Hope.

This week we got a donation of more than 100 pounds of crab apples from Hidden Harvest Ottawa. Crab apples are something you don't think of often and they're only available at a certain time of the year. We had no trouble putting them to good use.

Hidden harvest Ottawa organizes harvest from existing trees that most of us would not think of. There are a lot of fruits and nuts on public and private property that would go to waste even though there is nothing wrong with them.

The organization connects with owners who want to harvest local food. Once the food is harvested, it's shared with the nearest food agency. The organization also sells fruit-bearing trees to members of the public who are interested in growing their own food.

A lot of Ottawa residents have gardens. Many organizations participate in community gardens. If you would like to share your harvest, please don't hesitate to contact me at 613-789-8210, ext. 247 or at asilverman@shepherdsofgoodhope.com.

Check out our virtual giving catalogue

Online shopping is quickly becoming the norm. Take a company like Amazon. They're now bigger than WalMart.

Online donating is also becoming more popular as it's easy and people can connect in a variety of ways.

We like online donations because it also gives us an opportunity to present you with different ways that you can help us.

If you go to our website and look under the donate menu, you'll see an item called virtual giving catalogue. What the catalogue does is allow you to spend a certain amount of money to help us with a specific need. For example, for $25, you can buy a week's worth of lunches for one of the men and women who are part of the Worker Program. These clients have full- or part-time jobs but are still living in the shelter. For a variety of reasons, they are still homeless. We make sure getting to work every day is easy as possible by providing them a separate place to sleep from the main shelter and by providing them a boxed lunch each day.

I want to send a special thank you to everyone in the community who has given to us so far in 2015. I'm also including some special links to our virtual giving catalogue.

Virtual Giving Catalogue
Lunch for a week
Socks and underwear
Feed a family of 4

Hot weather and the homeless

I'm not going to complain about the hot weather. Our winters are too long for me to take issue with a few hot days. I can say that because I have air conditioning.

But when you're living on the street, there is no such thing as air conditioning. You can find shade but even in the shade, spending a full day outside in this weather isn't healthy. That's why on a day like today our triage staff will spend about 95 per cent of their day walking the grounds, ensuring people are drinking water. In some cases, we don't ask. We just give them some water as often homeless people can be unaware  they're already suffering from the effects of dehydration.

We'll also let people spend time indoors today where it's a lot cooler. For more on hot weather days and the impact on the homeless, please read this story we wrote recently.

Charlie makes the local newspaper

Charlie, the special six-year-old boy from Renfrew who donated his lemonade stand money to us, was back in the news last week. His hometown newspaper, the Renfrew Mercury, ran a photo on Page 1 followed by a story on an inside page. Click here for the story.

Charlie, you deserve all the accolades you are getting. With the school year just around the corner, I hope you get a chance to talk to your friends at school about how easy it is to help people who have so little.

And speaking of schools, I know it's not what a lot of people think about on such a hot day, but the start of schools is just a few weeks away. This fall, like past years, we'll be reaching out to the schools. So many students and teachers take the time every year to help us either by holding food drives, making sandwiches or raising money.

We're looking forward this year to visiting as many of you as we can. See you in a couple of months.