July 4 marked the first official day of the new drop-in centre in Lower Sackville, N.S., operated by Souls Harbour Rescue Mission.
“The big thing I’ve heard for Lower Sackville is the need for housing,” says CEO Michelle Porter. “While we’re not meeting that (housing) need yet, we are starting with the thing that Souls Harbour does best, which is food for the stomach and food for the soul.”
The centre is located inside the Rock Church, which donated the space.
It welcomes people from 12-3 p.m. Tuesday to Friday, offering a spot to check in or grab a bite to eat.
Another community organization helping people in need in Lower Sackville, Beacon House, has seen a rise in demand over its nearly four decades of operation.
Beacon House offers a food bank, boutique and clothing store as well as an off-site warming centre.
“We are the largest food bank in the province and we serve, right now, upwards of 30 to 50 people a day,” says Rod Rowlands, the CEO of Beacon House.
Despite not being on the peninsula, the demand for services continued to increase.
“It’s growing all the time,” Rowlands says. “When you’re out in the outskirts, people can get lost. They can fall through the cracks.”
That’s exactly what his organization is striving to avoid.
“Just by having the shelter open up there showed that there were a lot of people still without a permanent roof over the head,” he says. “And now with the cost of food, you’re able to get a lot less for a lot more money. And that’s making it a lot more difficult for people to feed their families.”
“(Since March), we’ve had over 4,600 people come through here,” Rowlands says. That includes people from infants in little car seats to the senior citizens.”
A local city-designated tent site proves services like Beacon House and Souls Harbour are needed across the municipality.
And volunteers are eager to help.
“It’s really a good, comfortable feeling knowing that I could do something to make a difference in somebody’s life,” says John den Hollander, a volunteer at Souls Harbour.
Asked about Souls Harbour now offering services in the Sackville area, Rowlands says, “the more services that we can have out here, the better.”
“Our intent is to make lives just a little bit easier, a little bit better for the people that need some help,” he says.
Souls Harbour is soon expanding to Sydney, but for now, they’re focused on people nearby.
“We’re soon going to bring in the addition of clothing and basic needs for people to take for free,” Porter says.
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