Grateful for the opportunity to make an impact
The impact of COVID-19 and the public shutdown had a devastating impact on the members of The Kettle.
“The thing about The Kettle is that when you are ready to do the effort necessary to better your life, they are there – and they are going to do everything they can. ”
- Anne, The Kettle member
Some of the last fiscal year highlights:
The Kettle partnered with Streetohome Foundation to open the doors to Canada’s first Recovery Café in January. It is a place of belonging where people in recovery can build an intentional community of mutual support and work towards achieving their chosen goals. Alongside facilitated workshops, social activities and learning opportunities geared towards recovery, one of the main program components of the Recovery Café is the weekly Recovery Circles.
We started daily food donations at the drop-in centre on Venables St. The Kettle was one of the first organizations that started getting food donations from the Food Stash Foundation during the pandemic. That gave us an opportunity to continue providing our members with hot meals every day, and even to start donating what was not used in the kitchen. That made a huge relief for the most vulnerable people in our communities at a time when food prices are getting higher.
The Kettle Choir and the Writing group started their rehearsals and meetings after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Social gatherings are of great importance in mental health recovery and we are so happy to see our members thriving in their talents again.
We see a huge rise in the number of individuals in need of our services.
Our goal for the next fiscal year is to get enough funding to keep all programs and services in full capacity.
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR, BOARD OF DIRECTORS
This has been a year like no other. This pandemic year has pressed the skills, capacity, energy, and creativity of the Kettle staff and volunteers and has had great impacts on our members and the broader community that we serve.
Through this year we overcame so many obstacles as a community, and we continued to serve in so many ways despite the challenges. From the teamwork of our staff to the support and patience of our members and tenants, to the extra effort by the volunteers.
We realized early we had to embrace change to continue this support in a way that would keep everyone as safe as possible and happily we had a very low count of people who had COVID-19. We should all be proud of how we were able to work together including expanding our food program (who says you can't run a program out of an alley!), more outreach, and more homeless support.
We particularly appreciated the guidance and supplies from our COVID-19 committee, who ensured we had the right safety equipment and knowledge to fight this pandemic, including teaching us new ways to live safely in communal settings.
But holding the pandemic at bay was not the only thing that kept us all busy:
·We broke ground on the building of a second-stage transition house next to our Peggy’s Place scheduled to open spring of 2022
·We have new services we are preparing to offer for those in recovery (more to come on that!!)
·We have gained new funders, including wonderful neighbors and businesses that we will partner with long term.
The opioid crisis continues against the backdrop of this pandemic and we pause to remember those we lost in the community. And this year has been a challenging one for Indigenous groups and people, as we learned about the children lost during the era of residential schools. We are turning our minds increasingly to how we can be part of reconciliation with Indigenous people and serve members who are Indigenous in the most culturally appropriate way we can.
As a board we have focused on two big things this year:
Passing our new balanced budget
Really understanding our role in fundraising, including recruiting people from our networks to come in as fundraising champions on a new staff committee
As a board, we couldn’t be prouder of what we have all done together this year to make the Kettle a place for everyone and where everyone has a place.
Tamara Little
Chair, Board of Directors - The Kettle Society