End of the year reflections

I went shopping yesterday for the usual groceries and in the store they were playing Christmas music from an album by Maddy Prior, it is different from the usual mindless stuff found in stores nowadays, and it certainly got my attention. In Canadian groceries stores weights are officially in Kg but you still find a lot of things in lbs and it is very confusing to say the least. I needed to buy 3 lbs of chuck beef for stewing and I knew that in Kilograms it would be 1.36 Kg. The only thing was that they had packages of 0.380 Gr. To make it simple I simply asked the butcher if he could weigh it all for me.

I was also looking for a rubber ring which is the seal for our Moka coffee machine a Bialetti model. So I went to Luciano on Preston Street in Little Italy and sure enough they had, it no problem.

While shopping I suddenly started thinking about what a good year it had been all together, we travelled to Europe and Stratford, Ontario and we met friends, had many good times, I worked on a fantastic exhibit of paintings of the First World War by Otto Dix and AY Jackson and saw another great exhibit at the National Gallery on Gustave Doré.

We did one thing this past Summer which I found enriching and that was to work at the Shepherd of Good Hope, the big homeless shelter preparing and serving lunch to the hundreds of Homeless people in Ottawa. The poverty level in the Capital is far more serious and greater than one can imagine or than the media is letting on. Like all cities Ottawa has pockets of wealth and tony neighbourhoods but there are large areas of poverty and trouble. In the Lower Town on the fringe of the ByWard Market and below the University of Ottawa Campus where many shelters are located. I am not speaking of the ghettoes in Nepean or in the West of the City or around Heron road where mostly poor immigrant communities live, in such cases, Somali gangs exist and fight each other for drugs and territory. I am speaking of the working poor, those on minimum wage and the ordinary poor people and many native and Innu people you see around the downtown core, Bank street north of the Queensway and on Elgin Street or in the Market area or near King Edward and Rideau Street. They are just people who have a story, something happened to them and they were unable to return to a routine where they could support themselves. Some suffer from a handicap which makes them unable to work or suffer from mental illness. On that topic Ottawa is a singularly harsh city and the media feels no sympathy for anyone with mental issues. Recently a column in the Ottawa Citizen was openly suggesting that people with mental illness should be simply incarcerated forever on the basis that they could be dangerous to others.

During the Summer a friend of ours Denis S. asked us to help him at Shepherd of Good Hope during one of the long weekends, as a tradition he and his family volunteer on those long weekend holidays when most people leave town. Lunch still has to be served and a crowd will show up.

We went on July 1 and on August 1 to serve lunch. Arriving around 08:30am to start preparation, cutting meat, buttering bread, making sandwiches for the after lunch afternoon crowd etc...
I made 650 sandwiches one morning and then helped serve a hot lunch to 700 people, cleaning up afterwards. The manager told me that it was a slow day given that it was a holiday weekend. Usually they serve 1000 hot lunches. The food is quite good, if you wondered, and the desserts are very nice.
All of it is fresh and they have 2 cooks also volunteers who have been doing it for years. It is a humbling experience and brings home certain realities about life in the big city. If you are poor and homeless life can be very harsh and you die young. They have a small chapel at Shepherd and they will have services and prayers for those who die. It is shocking to see that mid-forties is the expected length of life while for the rest of us can reasonably expect to live in our mid-eighties.

I am grateful for Denis S. and his suggestion that we participate in helping out at Shepherd of Good Hope. This is one lesson of Life that I will remember when I think of 2014.

Further to this experience I met with the director of La Soupe Populaire in Gatineau, the City across the river from Ottawa on the Quebec side. This organisation is involved like Shepherd in feeding the poor on the Quebec side of the river where the needs are just as great. He told me a terrible story of people freezing to death in the National Capital Region during our winters, some 2 dozen in 2012, shocking. Again it is a topic you rarely hear about, the Media do not cover such topics it's not sexy enough and for sure would embarrass the Hipsters, Politicians and Suburbanites.

We are thankful at Thanksgiving in October and we should also be thankful at Christmas for all our blessings.

  

A worthwhile experience

I am reflecting on a volunteer experience I had today at one of the better known Humanitarian organisation in Ottawa. I was asked to help out with meal preparation and serving lunch to those who come in from the street in Ottawa's Lower town on Murray Street. The Shepherd of Good Hope is well known in Ottawa and is centrally located on the corner of Murray Street and King Edward. Everyone knows it and knows of their good work for the poor and the homeless. It is the largest Not for Profit organisation dedicated to helping the poor and the homeless in Ottawa.

The story began 30 years ago at the Parish of St-Brigid in Ottawa. The priests of this parish had started  feeding homeless men in this poor area of Ottawa. The need was great and Shepherd of Good Hope was established. Today Shepherd offers many services to the needy from a 500 bed shelter partitioned  in several buildings around Ottawa, free meal service, health, assisted living services and other programs. The services are offered to Men and Women alike. Hundreds of hot meals are served on any given day and the shelter service is helpful especially during our extremely cold winters but also provides a safe and secure place for people who have nowhere to go and are vulnerable.

I was asked by Denis Schryburt who is running for Councillor in the Somerset Ward in Ottawa's Municipal elections on October 27 to lend a hand.
He has been participating in this program for years with his family and friends. We got to 233 Murray street at 08:30 am and started work, put on an apron and start cutting up meat and vegetables so that the experienced volunteer chefs in the kitchen can cook up the meal for lunch at 11:30am. Everyone is a volunteer and many have been doing this work for many years, so they are old hands at it. There is also a permanent Staff who manage all operations and a Board of Directors.

The meals are not only free but nourishing and copious, today there was a thick minestrone with chicken meat, a beef stew, a spicy rice curry, 2 vegetables and a coleslaw, tea, coffee, milk, bread and a rich dessert.  After lunch around 12:30 pm, for those who want we also have sandwiches to give out in case they are hungry in the afternoon.

The clients are old, young, of all ethnic background, male and female. The ladies have there own dining room as per their request. Many are fragile and afraid, the streets can be very mean even in Ottawa.  The whole operation is like clockwork, the dining area is spotlessly clean and all meals are served on chinaware, no paper cups or plastic plates. Many thanked us for preparing the food and serving them lunch today, telling us how good the food was. I saw what a kind word and a smile can make a big difference for someone down on their luck. Some 300 people had a good lunch on what I was told was a slow day due to the long Canada Day Weekend, the numbers are usually greater.

It made me think of the numerous platitudes we too often hear about how Canada is a rich country, when you see this type of need in just one city and this city is the National Capital, can you imagine what it is in other cities like Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and elsewhere. No need to look in far away lands to help out people you do not know. Look in your own backyard there are plenty of Canadians who need a helping hand and some compassion.

website SHEPHERD OF GOOD HOPE OTTAWA, http://shepherdsofgoodhope.com

Our volunteers on this day at the Soup kitchen of Shepherd of Good Hope.

Cold Ottawa

We had been warned by the Canadian Weather bureau that the New Year would bring Arctic air down to us in the south, well many cities in Western Canada have seen lows of -40 C and from Central Canada to the Maritimes its -30 C on average. Ottawa at -38 C today with the wind chill factor included which means that your skin should not be expose to the elements for more than 10 minutes if you want to avoid frost bites which are quite painful and can be dangerous to your health.

Last week the Director of the Soup Populaire (soup Kitchen) in Gatineau across the river from Ottawa was saying that it was known that 11 people in his area are homeless and refuse to come in, social workers and soup kitchen people have tried to entice them and speak with them, trying to convince them to come in. They may accept to come in maybe for a hot meal but will continue to sleep on the street at night. I cannot imagine how anyone can do that without risking death from hypothermia. Last winter in Ottawa 25 homeless people died from the cold. It is not that we lack space for people to sleep in warm and clean places or receive medical attention or get a hot meal. No, there is plenty of space for everyone and it is free, the problem as a friend of mine who works in social services explained, many are suffering from mental illness and are unwilling to stay indoors for what ever reason. They are adults and have rights, so we cannot stop or compel them if they refuse help. Sad but this is a reality in the big city.

Some are deranged to the point of walking aimlessly, screaming at imaginary people, cursing an invisible presence, in the summer it is annoying since they often do this in the middle of a busy intersection as people and cars try to go around them. In winter on a very cold day its scary because you know that they will harm themselves by not dressing warmly and suffer from exposure to the cold. What can be done for them is limited again because if they refuse help that is pretty much the end of it. In Ottawa the Police will no longer intervene, after being accused by several self-proclaimed rights groups of harassing the poor. It is up to the under-staffed and financially limited shelters to take care of such people if they can. But they do not have the specialize medical staff, mental illness is often seen as a marginal disease, unlike heart or other medical conditions which have a higher social profile.

All this to say that on a cold day like today I think of such people and what they are facing in our Canadian Cities.