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In its annual newsletter five years ago, the Ottawa Neighbourhood Services noted that “when we give to others, whether it is money, time, or just kindness, it all comes back to us.”
Today, more than 80 years after founder Harold Mayfield opened ONS’s doors to help the underprivileged and Ottawa’s working poor, the charitable, non-profit organization finds itself in dire need of some karmic return on its philanthropy, as a series of unfortunate events and some less-than-altruistic competitors may conspire to close those doors for good.
“I’m not prepared to see it end,” says ONS president Patricia Lemieux, “but we really need some help, fast.”
The organization owes five months rent — about $45,000 — on its Rideau Heights Drive location, while donations over the past five years have dropped by 70 per cent. Lemieux blames much of the ONS’s donation decline on the increasing number of clothing bins set up by out-of-town for-profit companies that resell the clothes. Some of these companies donate a small portion of their proceeds to registered charities; others only purport to.
“The city has promised to deal with the situation by 2017,” says Lemieux. “But that’s two years away. That may be too late for us.”
ONS’s difficulties go back a couple of decades. Then located in a large, three-storey, 40,000-square-foot building that it owned on Wellington Street in Hintonburg, its plan to expand to numerous satellite stores throughout the city backfired, driving it into bankruptcy protection and forcing it to sell its flagship building and three others it owned, and walk away with little more than, in the words of director Dave Smith, “a bag of pennies.”
It moved to Richmond Road, near Lincoln Fields, in 2001, but was forced to relocate again when the landlord sold the building in 2007. In 2012, arsonists chased ONS from its next location — at the City Centre office/warehouse complex off Scott Street — eventually pitting the organization against its insurance broker in a lawsuit that won’t be resolved until October. Meanwhile, its current location on Rideau Heights Drive, a quiet dead-end street with no walk-by traffic and extremely infrequent bus service, is doing it no great favours, either in attracting customers or donations of used goods. Thrift stores such as Value Village, a for-profit company, are simply more convenient.
The moves, the fires, the destroyed stock and ensuing legal battle, and the fight to have donation boxes regulated have all drained ONS’s resources — it receives no funding from outside sources apart from private individual donations — leaving it to face a mountain perhaps too big to move. It did receive Trillium Foundation grants for a new truck and forklift in 2002 and 2004, for example, but further grants would require audited statements, which Lemieux says would cost upwards of $10,000 to have prepared, money that simply doesn’t exist.
Meanwhile, deliveries of clothing, furniture and housewares to needy families — most referred to ONS by about 25 social agencies, including the Ontario Disability Support Program and Children’s Aid Society, with few of the clients able to pay more than the $35 delivery charge, if that — continue: a love seat, two chairs and a coffee table to an apartment on Kirkwood Avenue; six kitchen chairs to another on Laurier Avenue; two beds, two dressers, a sofa and a kitchen table and chairs to a McArthur Avenue family; two bags of clothing to Morrison Park; kitchenware to Vanier; and more beds, to Centretown, Carlington, Sandy Hill, Beacon Hill, Hunt Club and elsewhere.
“The number of people we help in the city is unbelievable,” says Smith. “You would not believe how many people sleep on floors.”
“And we don’t turn anyone away,” he adds. “You try going to Value Village and tell them you need a chesterfield and a table and chair for free. They’ll show you where the front door is.”
The 82-year-old Smith is well known in Ottawa for his philanthropy, through the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre that he founded, as well as his seemingly boundless volunteerism for numerous causes. A restaurateur most notable for Nate’s Deli, Smith’s ties to ONS date back to the 1940s when he was youngest in a family of 13 children growing up in Lowertown and his mother routinely visited the thrift shop, then on George Street, for clothes for her brood.
“My dad was a shoemaker, but in those days people didn’t have the money to fix their shoes to go to church on Sunday, so they used to bring in cabbages or onions and horse trade.
“So like everybody else, we had to go to Neighbourhood Services to get dressed to go to school. So we did it and were proud that we at least had clothes to wear to school.”
Lemieux, too, recalls Saturday-morning outings to ONS’s Wellington Street location when she was a youngster, where dozens of customers regularly lined up before the store opened to be first at the bargains.
“My family had a cottage, so we’d go for dishes and extra blankets and things like that. My mother used to come home with clothing and my sister and I would ask where she got it, so she started to take us. Dad would go to Kardish (deli) next door and drink coffee and read the newspaper for a couple of hours while we shopped. It became a regular thing, and I think that’s one of the reasons I got involved with the organization.
“We’ve never had the manpower to do a full-scale fundraiser,” she adds. “but now we’re hoping that perhaps some older people who have similar memories will come forward with donations of money. I hope we’re going to be around for a few more years.”
Visit ottawaneighbourhoodservices.ca for more information.
bdeachman@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
Today, more than 80 years after founder Harold Mayfield opened ONS’s doors to help the underprivileged and Ottawa’s working poor, the charitable, non-profit organization finds itself in dire need of some karmic return on its philanthropy, as a series of unfortunate events and some less-than-altruistic competitors may conspire to close those doors for good.
“I’m not prepared to see it end,” says ONS president Patricia Lemieux, “but we really need some help, fast.”
The organization owes five months rent — about $45,000 — on its Rideau Heights Drive location, while donations over the past five years have dropped by 70 per cent. Lemieux blames much of the ONS’s donation decline on the increasing number of clothing bins set up by out-of-town for-profit companies that resell the clothes. Some of these companies donate a small portion of their proceeds to registered charities; others only purport to.
“The city has promised to deal with the situation by 2017,” says Lemieux. “But that’s two years away. That may be too late for us.”
ONS’s difficulties go back a couple of decades. Then located in a large, three-storey, 40,000-square-foot building that it owned on Wellington Street in Hintonburg, its plan to expand to numerous satellite stores throughout the city backfired, driving it into bankruptcy protection and forcing it to sell its flagship building and three others it owned, and walk away with little more than, in the words of director Dave Smith, “a bag of pennies.”
It moved to Richmond Road, near Lincoln Fields, in 2001, but was forced to relocate again when the landlord sold the building in 2007. In 2012, arsonists chased ONS from its next location — at the City Centre office/warehouse complex off Scott Street — eventually pitting the organization against its insurance broker in a lawsuit that won’t be resolved until October. Meanwhile, its current location on Rideau Heights Drive, a quiet dead-end street with no walk-by traffic and extremely infrequent bus service, is doing it no great favours, either in attracting customers or donations of used goods. Thrift stores such as Value Village, a for-profit company, are simply more convenient.
The moves, the fires, the destroyed stock and ensuing legal battle, and the fight to have donation boxes regulated have all drained ONS’s resources — it receives no funding from outside sources apart from private individual donations — leaving it to face a mountain perhaps too big to move. It did receive Trillium Foundation grants for a new truck and forklift in 2002 and 2004, for example, but further grants would require audited statements, which Lemieux says would cost upwards of $10,000 to have prepared, money that simply doesn’t exist.
Meanwhile, deliveries of clothing, furniture and housewares to needy families — most referred to ONS by about 25 social agencies, including the Ontario Disability Support Program and Children’s Aid Society, with few of the clients able to pay more than the $35 delivery charge, if that — continue: a love seat, two chairs and a coffee table to an apartment on Kirkwood Avenue; six kitchen chairs to another on Laurier Avenue; two beds, two dressers, a sofa and a kitchen table and chairs to a McArthur Avenue family; two bags of clothing to Morrison Park; kitchenware to Vanier; and more beds, to Centretown, Carlington, Sandy Hill, Beacon Hill, Hunt Club and elsewhere.
“The number of people we help in the city is unbelievable,” says Smith. “You would not believe how many people sleep on floors.”
“And we don’t turn anyone away,” he adds. “You try going to Value Village and tell them you need a chesterfield and a table and chair for free. They’ll show you where the front door is.”
The 82-year-old Smith is well known in Ottawa for his philanthropy, through the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre that he founded, as well as his seemingly boundless volunteerism for numerous causes. A restaurateur most notable for Nate’s Deli, Smith’s ties to ONS date back to the 1940s when he was youngest in a family of 13 children growing up in Lowertown and his mother routinely visited the thrift shop, then on George Street, for clothes for her brood.
“My dad was a shoemaker, but in those days people didn’t have the money to fix their shoes to go to church on Sunday, so they used to bring in cabbages or onions and horse trade.
“So like everybody else, we had to go to Neighbourhood Services to get dressed to go to school. So we did it and were proud that we at least had clothes to wear to school.”
Lemieux, too, recalls Saturday-morning outings to ONS’s Wellington Street location when she was a youngster, where dozens of customers regularly lined up before the store opened to be first at the bargains.
“My family had a cottage, so we’d go for dishes and extra blankets and things like that. My mother used to come home with clothing and my sister and I would ask where she got it, so she started to take us. Dad would go to Kardish (deli) next door and drink coffee and read the newspaper for a couple of hours while we shopped. It became a regular thing, and I think that’s one of the reasons I got involved with the organization.
“We’ve never had the manpower to do a full-scale fundraiser,” she adds. “but now we’re hoping that perhaps some older people who have similar memories will come forward with donations of money. I hope we’re going to be around for a few more years.”
Visit ottawaneighbourhoodservices.ca for more information.
bdeachman@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
