Language: English


La compétition du Fonds communautaire Aviva 2010

24

jours

00

heures

38

minutes



Inscrivez-vous maintenant


Explorer les idées

options Map View List View Grid View

Catégories d'idées :


Valeur des idées :


Visualiser


Langue:


Rechercher par code postal:

  • dans un rayon de:

mot-clé:

Annuler la recherche


Gateway Linens participant hard at work

Idée acf3741:

Gateway Linens

Affichée le novembre 11, 2009

  • Auteur : Dion Oxford
  • Organisation: The Salvation Army Gateway
  • Endroit : 312 Broadview Ave, Toronto, ON
  • Catégorie : Favorisez le bien-être
  • Coût : À gros budget (50 000 $ à 250 000 $)

Gateway is a 108-bed shelter for men experiencing homelessness. We called ourselves The Gateway because we wanted to provide a place where when people come through our doors, other doors would open to them. In our 10 year history we have developed a philosophy that guides all that we do. That philosophy goes like this; "All people, no matter who they are or where they are from, need three things in order to have a good life: 1. A friend. 2. A home. and 3. A job. If a person doesn't have all 3 of those components in their life, they are merely surviving and not really living."

Over the years we have conceded that we are only really good at 2 of these 3 components. We are very good at helping people find a friend and a home, but we are not great at helping people find meaningful work for meaningful pay that will help people get out of living in a shelter and become fully contributing members of the community.

So 3 years ago we decided to do something to change that. It occurred to me that we were spending $50,000/year at Gateway just in cleaning our sheets, towels and pillow cases. And when I inquired of the other SA shelters in Toronto as to what they spend I discovered that between the 5 shelters we are spending $325,000 annually just on laundry. So I began to wonder how possible it would be for us to build an industrial laundry facility, hire people who live in our shelters to work at the laundry, train them in the laundry trade as well as assist the with necessary life skills and financial literacy, and connect them with full time employment. So, long story short, we did just that and have been in operation for close to 2 years now.

Now that we have seen how successful this program can be, and now that we are known enough to have people offer us their laundry contract, we believe it is time for us to move our facility to a new space where we can double our capacity and double the number of people we train from 6 people every 6 months to 12. We have a new location in mind, and we have crunched the numbers of the move and expansion, and we will need $250,000 to make that happen. I believe in this program and have witnessed changed lives since we have started it, and I believe Aviva is the perfect ft for what we are trying to do to make a positive impact on people's lives and on our community.


  • Partagez ceci
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Delicious
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
RSS

Discutez de cette idée


Seuls les 1000 commentaires les plus récents sont affichés.

Nous avons déjà sélectionné les gagnants. Il n’est plus possible de voter.

Merci à tous de votre soutien.


View Our Winners
  • Partagez ceci
  • Facebook LinkedIn Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Technorati
  • RSS

Idées près de chez moi

This is the map!

D'autres idées dans cette catégorie

Soumettre mon idée

Aviva Assurance  |  juridique  |  confidentialité