A modest crowd braved the cold night to attend a benefit concert for Centre 454 performed by the Paul Weber Band, and they were rewarded with great music and songs full of stories and the local history of eastern Ontario.

Mary Martha Hale, a retired former executive director of Centre 454, welcomed the audience and thanked the band for their generosity in doing the concert.

Shauna-marie Young, the current executive director of Belong Ottawa, thanked everyone for coming. “Your presence is an act of solidarity, and it means more now than you may ever know and more than ever before.” Centre 454 faces opposition from businesses and residents in the area who want it closed or relocated. “This evening would not be possible without the ongoing support of St. Albans, and the leadership of the Rev. Michael Garner, and the legacy of Mary Martha Hale,” Young said.

“Every day, the people who walk through the doors of Centre 454 and all of the sites for Belong Ottawa face bitter cold, hunger, loneliness, and the uncertainty of simply making it to tomorrow. In fact, today, on King Edward Street, three of my team who work at 454 offered lifesaving overdose support and revived a gentleman who had stopped breathing and had turned blue overdosing.” By the time paramedics arrived, the man was up walking and refused the ambulance.

“The work we do saves lives,” Young said. Since June 2025, “our team has responded to more 2 ,000 incidents on the streets in this neighbourhood, and with today’s intervention, 27 lives have been saved from overdose,” she reported.

“For more than 70 years, Centre 454 has been a place of refuge, offering warmth, nourishment, dignity, and human connection, said Young. “And the need continues to grow…. Since June of 2025, Belong Ottawa has served more than 56,000 meals from this site here, and 110 ,000 meals at all three drop -in day programs. …Beyond meals, we offer warm, clean, and safe places to rest, along with showers, laundry services, and a real sense of connection. Centre 454 is a doorway to support, and for many, a pathway to recovery. to healing, to employment, to income, and ultimately, it is sanctuary to all.

“Some of our participants recently shared with me at a town hall meeting what 454 means to them: ‘It’s like a second home.’ And another young man said, ‘I feel human again when I’m here.’ Another person responded, “You save lives.”

Young thanked everyone “for believing in Centre 454 and Belong Ottawa, and most importantly, for believing in the people who rely on us. Everyone deserves safety, care, and belonging.”

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Young welcomed and thanked everyone for their support. “What a beautiful day and what a beautiful group. This is Belong Ottawa’s very first formal fundraising event, and we could not be more grateful or excited to share it with you….We have 56 participants registered and 49 of you here today. We have 14 teams and 23 volunteers.

“As of a few moments ago, Belong Ottawa has exceeded our first fundraising event goal, and we are at 101%. We have raised $20,300,” she announced to cheers. She noted that donations were being accepted until the end of October, so there was still potential to raise more funds.

Young added that the event was also about raising awareness of the vital work that happens at Belong Ottawa’s three sites, where they welcome about 600 people every day.

“At a recent townhall meeting with our participants, those who use our centres, I met a gentleman [who gave Young permission to share his story]…His name is Red. He’s a regular visitor to at least two of our three sites. He shared how Belong Ottawa has made a difference in his life, and that having a place to get clean, to wash his clothes, to rest, to eat, and to work with our team and meet with other participants and our staff and our most valuable volunteers is very important to him. ‘If it weren’t for places like Belong Ottawa, I would have starved a long time ago,’ he said.”

Young added that Red’s story’s not unique. Between early June and the end of September, Belong Ottawa’s three locations served 67,000 meals. “Those meals are for people, our neighbours, our brothers and sisters experiencing poverty, homelessness, substance abuse and mental health challenges. The need is urgent … and the need is growing. And that’s why today matters, because every dollar raised today is going directly to programming that provides life-giving support for our most vulnerable community members,” Young said. “Thank you for walking, for riding, for fundraising, for volunteering, for standing with us together.”

City councillor Marty Carr, who serves on the Public Health Board, the Community and Social Services Committee, and is also the vice-chair of the Police Service Board, thanked Belong Ottawa for supporting vulnerable individuals. ‘In many cases, [they] are not only experiencing addiction and crises, inability to afford housing and homelessness but are also often some of the people that are the most vulnerable and being put in positions such as human trafficking and abuse on the streets. That is something that we talk about often in the Police Services Board is ,.. seeing that rise and how these people are being victimized further,” she said. “It’s just wonderful to have a place where people can go to a safe place, where they can get their wound care, where they can get food, where they can get their clothes washed and I just really want to thank everyone who helps support the most vulnerable.”

The Rev. Jarrett Carty, a deacon who serves as a chaplain for the Anglican Community Ministries to support participants in the programs and staff, said that Belong Ottawa is always in the thoughts and prayers of people in the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. Parishes want to lend their support and care for their neighbours, he said. He offered special praise for the staff at Belong Ottawa, who clearly care deeply for the people they serve. “I just want to do a shout out to them and to say what a great success this is. Hopefully, we keep this up and make it bigger,” he said.

And with that, everyone set off on foot or by bike to do laps in the neighbourhood surrounding St. Aidan’s before returning to the church to eat a celebratory lunch together.

By the end of October, Belong Ottawa’s Ride for Refuge had raised more than $23,000.  Those who wish to support Belong Ottawa can make donations any time at belongottawa.ca

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Belong Ottawa is proud to be joining dozens of charities across Canada for this family-friendly event that brings the community together to walk, pedal, push strollers, wheelchairs, and walkers, or pull wagons—all in support of people seeking hope, safety, and freedom.

Organizers hope parishes across the diocese will participate but also that they will spread the word in their communities.

There are lots of ways to get involved and help. Individuals can step up as team captains, form and register a team; invite friends, families, and co-workers to rally to fundraise, and then walk, ride or roll in the event from 10 am to 1 pm on Oct. 4. Those who don’t want to form their own team can join another team or donate funds to support a team.

“Ride for Refuge is a powerful expression of our community’s compassion—people walking, riding, rolling, and pulling together to offer hope, safety, and belonging to those who need it most,” Belong Ottawa’s executive director Shauna-marie Young says. “As the number of people turning to Belong Ottawa continues to grow, so too does the importance of this event. We are thrilled to welcome our Anglican parish partners on October 4—their heart and energy are a gift to this movement,” she added.

St. Aidan’s Anglican Church, Elmvale Acres (934 Hamlet Rd.) has volunteered to be  the start and finish point. Participants can choose the length of course that suits them — 2.5 or 5 km or bike 10 or 20 km. It is a great way to provide vital support for vulnerable people in Ottawa, but it can also be a fun opportunity for team building.

“If you haven’t joined yet, there’s still time—come be part of something that truly makes a difference,” says Young.

Register at: https://en.rideforrefuge.org/location/ottawaelmvaleacres

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Belong Ottawa, which has three service sites, was celebrating the 70th anniversary of Centre 454, the 41st anniversary of St. Luke’s Table and the 40th anniversary of The Well. All three offer compassionate care to vulnerable people who struggle with issues such as poverty, homelessness, mental health and addictions.

“Congratulations on achieving this incredible moment,” the mayor said. “Seventy years of Belong Ottawa helping the most vulnerable people in our community. That really is remarkable.

“And I want to thank the entire Belong Ottawa team, the members of the team past and present, the staff, the volunteers, for everything you have done and continue to do and will do to support those experiencing homelessness or those who are precariously housed.

“For decades, this has been an amazing place where people can drop in … for a meal, a hot drink, and some companionship,” Sutcliffe added. “When they did, they were met always with compassion, with dignity, and with respect. That was true 70 years ago, and it’s still true today, even as we are facing unprecedented challenges in our city,” he said, mentioning higher levels of homelessness, a mental health crisis and substance use disorder.

The civic recognition was undoubtably welcome at a time when Centre 454 is facing intense pressure from some neighbours who oppose its presence to move out of its long-time location in the basement of St. Albans Anglican Church on King Edward Avenue and to relocate.

The Rev. Canon Peter John Hobbs, director general of the Anglican Community Ministries, shared a brief outline of Belong Ottawa’s history. The Anglican Social Services Centre began 70 years ago as a way to support men who were leaving prison, he explained. “From the beginning, the centre was swamped with work, and in its first decades, it moved to many locations… In 1976, the centre moved to St. Albans at 454 King Edward. And in an early exercise of rebranding, it became Centre 454.

“Forty years ago, The Well began at St. Luke’s Church before moving here [to St. John the Evangelist] a few years later, providing services to women and women with children.

“St. Luke’s Drop-in Centre and Lunch Club, began 41 years ago, started by a group of parishioners and it would be renamed St. Luke’s Table in 2013. And in 2021, these programs amalgamated, being branded, Belong Ottawa.”

Reviewing documents in the Diocesan Archives, Hobbs said it was fascinating to see a community in action. Although the names of the people involved have changed over the decades, “the core values in programs have held fast. Everybody is welcome, included, treated with dignity and respect,” he said.  Programs and services, though shifting in time and context, have also been consistent—providing basic needs, meals, laundries, showers, offering support navigating the system, referrals, advocacy, accompanying and creating community, social recreation, arts-based programs, spiritual care, outings and more.

“Sadly, what has also persisted is the need for our services in the social challenges facing our neighbourhoods,” he added. Archival documents referred to a lack of affordable housing, unsafe rooming houses, food insecurity, a lack of resources to address issues around poverty, trauma, addiction, and mental health, and the needs are now even more acute, he said.

“Today, though, is a moment of pause, to celebrate, to remember our remarkable grace-filled legacy of service to others,” he said. He noted that the celebration is a shared one. “From the beginning, we have always looked beyond ourselves to a greater community,” he said, giving thanks for “partnerships with other agencies, other churches, so, so many donors, and three levels of government, especially the city of Ottawa.”

Community development manager Liz de Melo has worked with Belong Ottawa in various roles for 25 years. She described how the three agencies rose to the challenge of the pandemic.

“We pooled all of our resources to help to address food insecurity and isolation that people were experiencing while delivering food to people’s homes and offering street outreach,” and gradually merged into Belong Ottawa.

“Over these years, I’ve had the opportunity to celebrate, grieve, support, and offer hope to those who call us family.…We at Belong Ottawa are described by some as a living room of the poor and a place for someone, anyone, to just be without judgment. The past few years have presented many challenges because of the pandemic, the abject poverty, the drug epidemic, and the ongoing and worsening lack of affordable housing,” she said. Participants in the programs are often described as resilient, and that is a term she agrees with, but de Melo cautioned that resiliency is not a state they aspire to achieve.

She read a few lines from Louisiana writer Zandashe L’orelia Brown: “I dream of never being called resilient again in my life. I’m exhausted by strength. I want support. I want softness. I want ease. I want to be amongst the kin, not patted on the back for how well I take a hit, or for how many.”

Bishop Shane Parker thanked Mayor Sutcliffe for the honour he had bestowed on Belong Ottawa and for his and the City’s support. Many years ago, the Anglicans who started what has now become Belong Ottawa “looked around them and saw other human beings who were experiencing distress or marginalization or poverty. And they saw it with their eyes and then they felt it in their hearts, and then they chose to act,” the bishop said. And they invited other people of compassion to come and work with them, and in doing so, they created a sanctuary where “everyone has the opportunity to be received, to be valued, to be seen as a whole person without judgment and made to feel that they belong. Thank each of you for participating with us in creating sanctuary. Thank you for your hearts of compassion, for your hearts of love, and thank you for sharing this wonderful celebration today.”

The post City of Ottawa honours Belong Ottawa’s decades of service appeared first on Perspective.

Belong Ottawa is an Anglican Community Ministry, which serves hundreds of vulnerable people in the city who struggle with poverty, precarious housing, mental health issues and addictions, providing for basic needs and social support at three locations — Centre 454, St. Luke’s Table and The Well.

Young brings with her a wealth of experience as a registered nurse, educator and leader in health care and management. She earned a Master’s degree in conflict studies and is an accredited mediator. She kindly made time to talk with Crosstalk in late October.

How are you settling in?

“It’s going really well. I’m extremely impressed by the dedication of the entire team, and so that’s really helping settle in for sure…. The team has been warm and welcoming and informative.”

What drew you to Belong Ottawa?

The opportunity to work with an organization whose mission, vision, and values aligns with both my personal and professional vision and mission and value system was really the calling to join the organization. My passion has always been serving those who are less fortunate, whether that’s marginally housed, living with substance use or comorbid psychiatric conditions. My background in nursing has led me to be aligned to serve those who are most in need in our society.

What pats of your experience best prepared you to lead Belong Ottawa?

Belong is a small organization, recently amalgamated, and so there is a growth opportunity here…. I have worked with Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Care Centre (formerly the Royal Ottawa Hospital) and with Carlington Community Health Centre. In those positions, I was responsible for change leadership and management, whether that was at the point of care, or organizational infrastructure, so all of those skills are very important for me in this role now, as is my background in nursing and knowledge around mental health, addictions and psychiatry.

I worked at the Royal Ottawa for about six years, managed the substance use and concurrent disorders program at the time when the hospital was evolving to become a tertiary care centre, and a centre of excellence, so there was a huge transition. My knowledge, skills, ability and experience in mental health and addictions is also as important because I very much understand the needs of our participants.

I’m an accredited intergenerational mediator, so I understand family systems and the methodology and the research around various issues families face. And often some of those issues are what led our participants to have lost their contact in their support systems.

I’m am also an accredited manager and leader, and I am committed to the people that I work for. That is not just the participants, but the amazing team at Belong — so supporting the excellence in the service delivery to our participants and also serving the staff, the employees, our valued human resource, which is the why and how we can do what we do. They are equally important to me.

I don’t think there’s one piece of my background or experience or knowledge that is more important than the other in this role. It’s the whole basket that I’m bringing forward, and to be honest with you, I have tapped on every bit since my first day.

Early in your career, you lived and worked in the North. What did you do there?

I was living in Iqaluit…Working with and serving in health services in Iqaluit—a formative experience in my early nursing years….

It was really an important personal family experience and a professional growth experience….I wanted my children to learn, to experience part of Canada that they might never see [otherwise]. I wanted them to understand what it’s like to live as a minority, even in their country of origin. It was a great adventure to live there, to understand the eastern Arctic and Nunavut and learn that Canada isn’t just the east and west coast, there’s three coasts in this country…. Many Inuit populate that north coast, and the Inuit Regions are are vital to our country — a very rich ecosystem, very rich in culture and traditional Inuit knowledge .

More recently, you served as director of programs at Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada here in Ottawa. What was the focus of your work there?

I was hired to create a division where we addressed social and economic prosperity, safety, justice, health and well-being, and anti-violence in support of Inuit womens rights, health and prosperity.

What are the biggest challenges you see at the moment or on Belong Ottawa’s horizon?

There’s still opportunities for …supporting our team and further development of the infrastructure, and creating stability in a newly amalgamated organization….

There is ongoing opportunity to work with our allies and partners in Ottawa to address the issues of food insecurity, lack of affordable housing… and finding creative ways with our partners to address and eliminate homelessness.

Are there specific hopes you are envisioning?

Consolidating the organizations in ways that continue to support the current day programming we are engaged in that makes a difference in the lives of 600 to 700 people a day in Ottawa, and also really focusing on supporting the entire team … so they may continue to do the work they’re doing.

We are really looking forward to the rebuild of St. Luke’s [which was severely damaged by a fire in October 2022.]

And ongoing community relations with our neighbours around each of the service areas, continuing support and education and raising awareness of the needs of the populations we serve…trying to be good neighbours, working closely with our parish partners.

The post Shauna-marie Young is Belong Ottawa’s new executive director appeared first on Perspective.

Bishop Shane Parker thanked her for 14 years of service with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, initially as senior manager with Cornerstone Housing for Women, followed by 10 years with the day programs (Centre 454, The Well, St Luke’s Table), which were amalgamated into Belong Ottawa in 2022. “We wish her every blessing for this new chapter of her life,” he wrote.

The Rev. Canon Dr. PJ Hobbs, director general of the Anglican Community Ministries, praised her as a “a transformative leader in our Community Ministries, leading a process that saw the merger of our three Ottawa day programs into one ministry. While such a feat speaks of Rachel’s organizational abilities, what I will always value most about Rachel is her vision and passion for supporting the most vulnerable in our midst. Her participant/client centred focus is rooted in compassion, thoughtfulness, and research—an inspiration and good reminder to us all.”

Belong Ottawa board chair Lorraine Tell said that a key area of Robinson’s impact has been “her presence and participation in the local social services network and advocacy agencies where she tirelessly offers her experience and works to be the voice for those who are in need and need support for their voices to be heard.”

Tell added that the staff and participants in the programs “feel Rachel’s impact every day; her focus on participants and her championing of the staff at Belong Ottawa are what make our programs so effective and what makes Belong Ottawa an organization that attracts the best staff in sector.”

Robinson grew up in Birmingham in the West Midlands in England and studied literature and drama at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth before earning a Masters of Science degree in psychology. In an interview with Crosstalk, she said didn’t know exactly what she wanted for her career, “but I always knew I wanted to try and make an impact … a difference.”

Her father had been a civil servant and her grandfather a police officer and following on that path, she knew she wanted to work in the public sector.

She began working with the British National Health Services as a management trainee at a time when they were closing psychiatric hospitals with the idea that people should live and be cared for in their communities. “At the time everyone believed community care was the answer,” she said, noting that the same policies were followed here in Canada. “There were bad things about those asylums, very bad things, but one of the functions that they did fulfill was that they housed people. Now, probably many of the people that live in shelters, downtown, would have lived in the psychiatric hospital previously…. There’s a shortage of good, supportive housing so now we’ve got a crisis downtown of 200 people every night sleeping outside.”

Robinson moved to Ottawa with her family because her husband worked with Nortel.  She started her work in Canada as a frontline worker with Ottawa family shelters and the Elizabeth Fry Society before being hired by Cornerstone Housing for Women to help open its Booth Street residence in 2011.

Four years later, she took on a role as interim executive director at The Well, which became permanent. In 2018, she became executive director of St. Luke’s Table also.

In March 2020, the executive director of Centre 454 left, and Canon Hobbs asked her to fill in while they hired a new director. But then the pandemic hit and suddenly she was in charge of all three ministries while they figured out how to continue to provide service in the midst of lockdowns.

“Rachel’s work to stabilize the three-sites day programs during the pandemic isolation period was instrumental to our participants who were suddenly without the basic services that were keeping them alive and connected during that difficult time,” Tell told Crosstalk.

They got a van and began delivering food to the people who used to come to all three locations, which also helped to mitigate loneliness and isolation.

“It was that feeling of all hands on deck. The team really pulled together. Everyone did what was needed in the moment,” Robinson recalls.

The pandemic was the biggest challenge she and the staff faced, but she says that now sees it as a highlight of their work together as well. “It was really difficult and a struggle and tiring…, but also there was a satisfaction of knowing that we were keeping the services going. We stayed open when other programs closed. So, for me, there’s a sense of pride and reward… You can learn and become stronger and grow from adversity.”

She said another highlight was renovating the St. Luke’s Table location, but the satisfaction of seeing that project completed was dashed soon after when a fire devastated St. Luke’s Anglican Church and St. Luke’s Table facilities in the basement. The satisfaction of seeing that restoration, which is still ongoing, will be for her successor, she says.

Robinson mentions her relationships with Belong Ottawa participants as another highlight.

“I’m still very on the ground and connected to participants…Having relationships with such a wide range of people … is really meaningful.”

In her retirement, she is looking forward to spending more time in the U.K. with her family, but she says she will take some time to just decompress. “I’m really just going to wait and see how I feel before I decide what I might do with my time next,” she says.

Congratulations and best wishes, Rachel!

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I wish the goal of this to be the lifting up and acknowledgment of people who all too often have fallen victim to the very identities “assigned” to them. What do I mean by this? Well, I’m talking about people who usually are not allowed to make a contribution to society….What I mean is the all too present problem of people’s worth being judged on their labels, the identity tags we slap on people every day of their lives. We judge people based on their most noticeable, or salient, characteristics. This is a short cut, a heuristic we employ all the time, for speed and efficiency. Unfortunately, however, its accuracy is extremely unreliable at best, and flat-out dead wrong at worst. For our most salient characteristics are rarely, if ever, our most important ones.

Think about it for a second. If you saw someone with a bad haircut, looking dishevelled with dirty clothes, and acting weird, would the first thought that came to your mind, or even the second or third, or umpteenth, be, ‘Hmmm, I wonder, could this person be a gifted piano player? Or artist? Or poet? Or anything thought distinguished, wonderful or “worthy”? My guess is no. That’s just what we do. And the way we think has effects, effects that are far-reaching.

So, I’d like to think that we have a chance here, an opportunity to put aside our prejudices and limiting mindsets, to allow ourselves to judge not only artistic creations, which often speak for themselves, but even more importantly ideas, based solely on the merit of the idea itself, and not on the social status, appearance, fashion sense or popularity of the idea’s creator.

I know this is hard. It is very easy to say but to implement? Not so much. The only thing I can say is that we have the opportunity to do so, both here and in the society as a whole. Too often people end up getting marginalized, getting pushed to the fringes of society. Too often we forget that for everyone, life should be about more than just eating, more than just getting the basic essentials of survival. [American psychologist Abraham] Maslow knew it—and so do I. We’re not put on this beautiful earth simply to mark time, simply to get through another meaningless day. We were put here to bloom—to blossom—to sing. Kudos to anyone who in any way helps make this possible for another. You are great—and you are blessed.

James Andriulaitis is an Ottawa-based poet.

There’s an added beauty

There’s an added beauty in flower, herb or tree,

that grows where it isn’t “supposed” to be —

a resistor to small-minded norm uniformity,

a rebel against the well-worn default conformity;

an outlier, a maverick, a defier of convention,

nature’s stand against man’s interference, man’s intervention.

Pansies flowering between cobblestones,

In lone stance displaying their vibrant tones;

Siberian elms growing from cracks in cement,

and in their expansion, pushing aside, buckling the pavement:

or in spring, Monarch’s soul food or other things thought weeds,

bursting through asphalt in a fresh vital vigour of green.

Manitoba, Ashleaf Maples enveloping chain-link fences,

mismanaged and thought the weed of trees,

they still have their defences;

Rock Elms rocking out between stones and concrete—

Though I’ve given you examples, it’s far from complete.

Even the moss I find engrossingly sublime,

and, with the lichens, are markers of “slow time.”

And, lest I forget, my most favourite of all,

sunflowers, sprouting from curbs, or between

sidewalk and beginning of bridge over river that I know

is certainly a sight to value, and for me does enthrall,

when in final flower they make their lovely show.

There’s an added beauty in flower, herb or tree,

that grows where it isn’t “supposed” to be,

that grows where it “doesn’t belong” —

It’s the power of life, growing free —

the power to sing its own song.

— James Andriulaitis

james andriulaitis@allpoetry.com

 Related story:  Library art exhibit showcases Belong Ottawa artists’ talent

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Launching the 6th annual exhibit with a celebratory vernissage on Aug. 14, Belong Ottawa’s community development manager Liz deMelo said, “It’s such a pleasure to be able to highlight the talent that exists in our community.”

She thanked the library and its staff for their support of the artists and Belong Ottawa.

“It’s just been such a wonderful relationship with the Ottawa Public Library. I know a lot of our folks spend a lot of time coming to the library,” she said, noting that it is a safe place where they can read and research. “They’ve made a lot of friends with a lot of the staff here because they’re compassionate and welcoming, so we’re grateful for that relationship that you have with a lot of our community members as well.”

Librarian Emily Porter said that the library was “thrilled to be collaborating again with our community partner and neighbour, Belong Ottawa.

It’s a privilege to host this annual exhibit and to celebrate the artists… I want to thank all the artists for sharing your art and your talent and your story with us. Without you, this wouldn’t be happening.”

DeMelo introduced the artists in attendance. “Donna has such enthusiasm, and the minute last year’s exhibit was over she started producing work already for this year. And so I’m always excited to see the pieces that she produces and how her work has developed….It’s beautiful and so intricate.

Donna described the three brightly coloured paintings that were in front of the gathered guests and then thanked the other participating artists with special thanks reserved for deMelo. “If it wasn’t for Liz we wouldn’t have this. …You are wonderful.”

George spoke about the very personal meaning of his art. “My partner passed away 13 years ago and this is one of the memories of him. I’m really glad I can do art for him,” he said.

Introducing Aimee, deMelo thanked her for “enriching the programming at our Belong at the Well site. She facilitates art classes for the participants that come there in the evening, who would otherwise probably not really have a lot to do besides having a safe place to be. It’s also nice to be engaged in meaningful activities. She has a steady following of about 10 to 12 people each evening, so thank you for that.”

Aimee showed the guests two ink drawings of wolves that had been her pets, noting that wolves are much maligned and she would have wolves as pets again “in a heartbeat.” She explained that she does art in many other styles and does not want to be limited by categories. “I have no boundaries,” she said. ”I just do what I want to do and see what comes out, so some days there’s abstract and that’s fine, and other days it’s realism. This is more portraiture, but I encourage the people at The Well to just express themselves. Everybody says, ‘Oh I can’t draw, I can’t join your group, I’m not an artist.’ Uh, uh uh…. Every one of you is an artist,” she reassured those in attendance.

Related article: We are put here to bloom, to sing

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About half of the 60 parishioners have taken training to be able to assess a person’s condition and administer Naloxone if they encounter someone they suspect has overdosed.

Parishioner Moira Alie described working as a team when they were called to help a man at the end of a Sunday service a couple of years ago. “I grabbed the Naloxone kits that the church had, and I also had my own Naloxone kit…,” she recalls. A couple of people had already started trying to resuscitate him with nasal sprays of Naloxone, but it wasn’t working. “I just kept handing them more and more of the Naloxone… and at the same time I called 911 and was giving the information to the dispatcher. It was looking really bad. The man was turning blue and was clearly without oxygen, but the Naloxone kits weren’t working. Every single one wasn’t until the last one that they used. Finally, he came to and actually stood up right away.” It’s helpful that a large number of people at St. Albans who know [what to do] and can act, she said.

Of course, there are challenges, Garner said, but in his two years in the parish, they have worked closely with 454 and trust has grown. In late July, the whole south wall of the church was defaced with graffiti. The centre staff let him know and sent photos. “We decided that it was too much to be reasonably cleaned by parishioners and centre staff, so we hired the graffiti company. They came in and cleaned it up. It was all done within eight hours,” he said. Both Centre 454 and the parish take a calm, proactive approach. “We’re just going to roll with these things,” he said.

The parish tries to champion Belong Ottawa and act as a bridge with the community.

Garner said it is important to realize what remarkable work the 454 staff does. “The Centre continues to rise to the challenge, but it’s crazy that we have social support workers doing frontline [first aid for overdoses.]” He hopes the City will provide funding for a nurse. “The Centre is being asked to do more with the same [resources] and the complexity is getting higher and higher. That’s really problematic.”

He added that he is inspired by the compassion, love and care program manager Dean Dewar and executive director Rachel Robinson approach the people who come to Centre 454 with. “It’s a lesson to me, I think it’s a lesson to the congregation that we continue to learn.”  

Related story: Belong Ottawa at Centre 454: Getting by with help from friends

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