Stories

The process began with conversations, with Vancity Community Foundation staff, about how the Centre might begin to address its real estate challenge.

A fair world. Social justice. Thoughtful participation. These ideals inspire the generous giving of Bill Bargeman and Nancy Hawkins, retired teachers and union leaders who established a Donor Advised Fund through Vancity Community Foundation in 2014.

No money changed hands. A contract was signed to acquire 31 new units of below market rental housing in the City of Richmond, BC. And all of the players received what they wanted in the ultimate win-win-win scenario for non-profit housing in this province.

In September 2017 a once-notorious establishment in Surrey, where sirens had rung out daily and women were profoundly exploited under went an incredible transformation with support from the Surrey Homelessness and Housing Society, which provided a $75,000 responsive grant for much needed renovations.

The vision is borne out of an undeniable need. People are better off when they can afford a home where home is: where they work, go to school, where their social connections are and/or where they’ve lived their entire lives.

Sometimes what makes the biggest difference in a person’s life is the sense of confidence that comes from getting back to work and belonging in the community. Last year, Nicole Thurgood was looking too long and hard for work. She began feeling low, asking herself: “What am I going to do? How do I feed my family?” The 46-year-old Strathcona resident turned to a job-readiness program with Mission Possible, a Vancouver community development agency and accepted a six-month transitional job in one of its social enterprises, MP Maintenance, which provides exterior building cleaning services and landscape maintenance.

Hamsa Jaser has a new dream that feels like hope: A cozy family restaurant that brings “a small part of her home country to her new home” in Richmond, with a few traditional Iraqi dishes such as quozi, lamb shank with traditional herbs and spices, served like home with starters, complimentary soup and a sauce.

When Margaret Mitchell passed away on International Women’s Day in 2017 at the age of 92, she left a legacy of advocating for the rights of women and greater economic and social justice for all. Her Fund continues to support programs and initiatives that promote economic and social justice for women in East Vancouver.

As an independent non-profit urban development organization based in Vancouver, BC Artscape aims to create the conditions for artists and creative communities to thrive by developing and managing affordable space, programs and services.

In 2017, with an investment from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Affordable Rental Housing Innovation Fund, the PDF Loan program expanded and introduced a new Pre-Construction loan that provides additional and longer-term capital into non-profit affordable rental housing initiatives.

2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the Surrey Homelessness and Housing Society (SHHS). Over the past ten years the Society has provided over $3.5 million in funding to Surrey organizations that assist people experiencing homelessness. The Society has supported 55 projects with more than 50 partners assisting over 500 individuals, including children, who were homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness.

Often organizations that approach Vancity Community Foundation for support are managing multiple competing priorities. Through enterprise capacity reviews, Vancity Community Foundation assists organizations with assessing their key strengths and challenges in the areas of product/service, marketing, management, and governance, infrastructure and systems, operations and human resources, and financial systems.

Vancity Community Foundation supported ShredMasters to participate in a custom marketing workshop to build internal marketing capacity while completing a marketing plan. CSE also received support to hire a sales person to grow the client base for both ShredMasters and ValleyRecycling, a commercial and residential supportive employment recycling social enterprise the organization also operates.

As part of VCF’s commitment to strengthening social enterprise, and in order to help vendors with their sales our social enterprise developer worked with Megaphone to develop a workshop that would give vendors some tools to better understand where their customers are coming from.

Open each winter season, Aunt Leah’s lots sell high-quality Christmas trees and accessories, including stands, wreaths, swags and greenery, across Metro Vancouver. The lots are run by a combination of employees and volunteers and also provides training and employment opportunities to at-risk youth.