Ten front-line agencies providing food and shelter during the coronavirus pandemic will be receiving a $200,000 boost in funds.
The funding is courtesy of the United Way Peterborough and District in partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough. The organizations held a roundtable with the agencies to discuss how initial donations to the COVID-19 Community Response Fund could be used to address urgent needs.
“They agreed upon how the available funds could be allocated to bolster efforts,” said Jennifer DeBues, director of administration and granting at Community Foundation. “It was a very participatory process with lots of information-sharing from the front lines of the pandemic.”
The 10 agencies receiving funding are:
- Brock Mission
- Community Care Peterborough
- Community Counselling and Resource Centre (CCRC)
- Food for Kids (Peterborough Public Health)
- Kawartha Food Share
- One City Peterborough
- One Roof Community Centre
- PARN – Your Community AIDS Resource Network
- Nourish Project (YWCA) and
- YES Shelter for Youth and Families.
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“Getting more people out of shelter, into safer housing, social distancing, et cetera, is good for all of the community,” stated Charles Shamess, executive director of PARN.
Among the priorities are safe shelter for homeless youth and adults; emergency food for those same people as well and low-income seniors and families; and personal protective equipment for front-line service workers.
“Thank-you to the Community Foundation and United Way for taking the lead on this,” said Christian Harvey, executive director of One City Peterborough. “This has been a great process. If you could pass on our thanks to those that donated it would mean so much.”
Jim Russell, CEO of the United Way Peterborough, said the community and world are facing an “unparalleled” challenge that will “define us for a generation.”
“That response is, and will continue to draw on all that we have as humanity — our creativity, our intelligence, our faith, our entrepreneurship, our love of one another and of our community,” he stated. “The partnership between the United Way and Community Foundation builds on that raw human desire to thrive. We started with a focus on the most vulnerable among us and will seek to respond further as need emerges.”
Russell says the next round of COVID-19 Community Response Fund grants will support charities helping people cope with mental health challenges during the pandemic.
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