During the month of May we decided to focus our fundraising efforts in support of the Ottawa Mission. Since 1906, The Ottawa Mission has been providing the basics of food, shelter and clothing to those who are homeless in our community. The Ottawa Mission provides 235 shelter beds for adult men and serves an average of 1,297 meals a day to men, women and children in need. Along with serving three meals a day to residents of the shelter, The Mission also provides community meals for people who may have their own housing, but don’t always have money for food. We got things rolling by emailing The Mission to find out how we could help and we got a response from their Communications Manager, Shirley Roy. We set out with three major goals for the month: to increase The Mission’s inventory of most needed items, raise money with a bake sale, and end it by volunteering our time to prepare a meal in their kitchen. Shirley was immediately onboard with our idea and we set things in motion. Partnerships We wanted to increase the inventory of The Mission’s most needed items by partnering with local businesses in various locations the Ottawa area to make it easy for people to donate items. We were so fortunate to have the following businesses quickly come on board to help us out, they included:
- ALL 7 Works Burgers locations in Ottawa (Kanata, Manor Park, Orleans, Westboro, Barrhaven, Glebe, and Bank)
- Café Cino Latte
- Take Another Bite
- Luna Café and Crepes
The Ottawa Mission supplied each business with a blue bin to collect items such as new or gently used towels and pillow cases, shoes, work boots, jeans, and toiletries like razors, antiperspirant, and shaving cream. As the bins filled up, The Mission’s community driver Matthew was just a call away. Thanks to Matthew for doing all the drop-offs and pickups throughout the month. Over the course of the month we were able to collect over 12 full bins of items.
Thank you to each and every business that helped us and to everyone that donated at our partner locations. Bake Sale The Great Glebe Garage Sale is always in the month of May so we thought it would be a great opportunity to hold a bake sale in support of our cause. We used our social media platforms to recruit both home and professional bakers to donate to our sale. The response was truly overwhelming and we received offers of donations right up until the day before the sale. Cookies, cupcakes (we even the little hamburgers, which were a hit), pies, scones, squares, entire cakes, and loaves were among the treats we were given. The bake sale was a huge success with many items disappearing before noon. We were also so fortunate to have 2 local coffee roasters (Happy Goat and Poppa Bean) donate coffee as well. It was a bit cool and breezy on the day of the sale so the coffee was a hit and sold very well.
We were also honoured to have Mayor Jim Watson stop by and be one of our first customers. He thanked us for our work supporting The Mission and even took some photos with us.
The bake sale was a great success and we raised $1452. Thank you to everyone for coming to see us during the Great Glebe Garage Sale. A big thank you to the following for the donating baked goods:
- Amelie Matte
- Bytowne Home Care Serivces
- Christina McMahon
- Deb Abbott
- Emily Smith (The Best of this Life)
- Hot Cream Holes
- Julie Mack
- Mary Seligy
- Matt Fifer
- Suzanne Kettley
- Sweet Pages
- Thameena Nazir
- The Baking Co.
- Totally Squared
- We are cakers! by Bertha
Volunteering It took a few tries to find a date that worked for everyone but we finally went to The Mission this past Saturday for part three of our journey. We started off the morning at 9am by officially presenting a cheque for $1452 to Shirley Roy, Media and Community Relations Manager at The Mission.
We were then outfitted with aprons and hairnets and were led by chefs Percy and Emma in the kitchen. We helped prep the salad for lunch and dinner, cracked 30 litres of eggs in preparation for Monday’s breakfast which would make over 800 slices of French toast, and sliced more potatoes than we could count that would eventually become potato salad.
Using our donation money, the Mission’s Manager of Food Services chef Ric Watson suggested a special lunch (a typical Saturday lunch is chilli, rice, and bread) menu of chicken with BBQ sauce, roasted potatoes, salad, buns, dessert and juice that would serve over 400 people.
We were so humbled by the experience at The Mission. So many wonderful staff and volunteers working together everyday to provide for people in need. We received so many appreciative smiles and thank yous from our lunch guests, all surprised and many excited by the special menu. This whole experience really explains and exemplifies the spirit behind Ottawa Foodie Girlz. Thank you to everyone that made it a success!