|
COMMUNITY
 |
Summary of Community Wheels Program in Greater Montreal
Maison de quartier de Fabreville serves the municipality of Laval, and especially the districts of Fabreville and Sainte-Rose. This neighbourhood centre provides local residents with a place to meet and develop ties. It offers a wide range of activities to different groups: morning discussions for parents of 0 to 5 and 6 to 12 year olds and mothers under 24 years of age, parenting skills workshops, early stimulation workshops for young children, collective kitchens, emergency food assistance, an internet access centre, and a drop-in centre. The Maison’s youth service offers a place for young people to get together under the supervision of community workers, as well as homework assistance for children in primary school, self-esteem workshops for grade 5 and 6 students, and sexuality workshops for 10 to 17 year olds. Thanks to GM’s “Community Wheels” program, Maison de quartier de Fabreville is able to meet a wide range of needs while making considerable savings in taxi costs. Volunteers use the GM minivan to bring mothers and their children to the agency’s self-help workshops. Every Thursday, the person responsible for emergency food assistance drives the minivan to the Centre de bénévolat de Laval to collect foodstuffs. Agency youth workers rely on the minivan to take groups of teenagers on a host of organized outings, such as visits to sugar shacks and camping trips. Indeed, the GM minivan has become so popular and is employed for so many different activities that the Maison has had to establish a schedule to ensure that everyone at the agency get a fair chance to benefit from it. Bénado
Young people who lack self-esteem often drop out of school and become delinquents. Bénado offers support to at-risk youth between the ages of 14 and 17 living in the western area of the South Shore, in the Roussillon RCM. The agency helps them to reflect on their situation and future prospects, and to consider returning to school or finding a job. GM’s “Community Wheels” program is particularly helpful to Bénado because the surrounding area is poorly served by public transport. The GM minivan makes it possible for agency staffers to drive young people to appointments at local businesses and other community resources. It also serves to bring teenagers who have no alternative mode of transportation, as well as parents who have no vehicle of their own, to Bénado for activities or meetings with agency youth workers. The minivan also makes it easier for staffers to travel to meetings and appointments with the agency’s various partners in the community. During Bénado’s long-distance bicycle race last September, the GM minivan made it possible to assure the safety of the young racers throughout the length of course as well as to transport participants who dropped out due to exhaustion. To make sure that it benefits as many people as possible, Bénado also lends the minivan to several of its partner agencies, including the Maison des jeunes de Ste-Catherine, which uses it to take young people on outings, and “La Grande Tournée 2005 des jeunes de Châteauguay et de Kahnawake,” a project which brought together 25 francophone, anglophone and native youth to develop bonds of friendship. Sésame The Service d’éducation et de sécurité alimentaire de Mercier-Est (Sésame) is a community initiative to promote food security among the culturally diverse population of Mercier-Est. It provides residents with dignified access to nutritional food which is culturally acceptable to them, as well as information to develop their self-reliance. The GM minivan enables Sésame to offer a wide range of services: meals-on-wheels for seniors, the transportation of participants to collective kitchens in areas poorly served by public transport, and access for persons with limited mobility to the agency’s three points of service for emergency food assistance. The minivan also makes it possible for several dozen volunteers to get involved in Sésame by providing them with transportation to and from its activities. And of course it is used by the agency to collect foodstuffs, purchase supplies and transport employees. Mindful of sharing this essential resource, Sésame also places it at the disposal of several of its community partners, such as L’Antre-Jeunes and Maison des familles. Centre d’action bénévole d’Iberville et de la region
The Centre d’action bénévole d’Iberville (Montérégie) et de la region promotes volunteering as well as the recruitment, training and coordination of volunteers in Iberville and the surrounding region. This voluntary action centre assembles and develops volunteer resources and redistributes them to social partners so they can respond effectively to the needs of the less fortunate. It serves the Haut-Richelieu RCM, and especially the Saint-Jean-Iberville region. The GM minivan plays a key role in most of the Centre’s activities, especially the meals-on-wheels service as well as the transportation of seniors and isolated individuals to the Centre for community meals. It is also highly appreciated by many members of Groupe Renaissance, a self-help group for persons aged 55 year and over, who rely on the minivan to bring them to their monthly activities at the Centre, and by participants in the literacy group, who use it for their occasional outings. Staffers use the GM minivan to collect foodstuffs for the emergency food assistance program, to provide transportation to the food purchasing groups, and for all the Centre’s deliveries. The Centre d’action bénévole also shares this invaluable resource with other community agencies in its area which have no vehicle at their disposal. West-Island Association for the Intellectually Handicapped
The West-Island Association for the Intellectually Handicapped works to improve the lives of West-Islanders with intellectual disabilities by promoting their integration into the life of the community and changing the public perception of them. It organizes recreational activities and manages residential resources for persons with intellectual disabilities, and supports their families. The Association serves the West-Island of Montreal, which comprises 12 municipalities and boroughs. GM’s “Community Wheels” program gives a considerable impetus to many of the Association’s programs and services. The GM minivan is used to drive intellectually handicapped children to local day care facilities in order to promote their social integration, to deliver food to needy families of persons being helped, and to transport intellectually handicapped adults every Friday to collective kitchens offered by other agencies. Thanks to the minivan, many beneficiaries now have easy access to many of the Association’s social and recreational activities, including its Karaoke Evening, summer camp in the Laurentians, and family party. The minivan plays an important logistical role in all of the Association’s fundraising activities. Staffers use it to drive the Association’s nine residents to their medical appointments. And it proved invaluable when the Association’s pre-kindergarten program moved to new premises. Centraide of Greater Montreal In Greater Montreal, which is home to almost half the population of Quebec, many people are hard hit by poverty. Poverty leads to isolation and distress, and its effects fuel a host of social problems, including family break-up, increased violence, health deterioration, impaired child development, parental distress, substance abuse and exclusion. Thanks to the generosity and involvement of tens of thousands of donors and volunteers, Centraide of Greater Montreal is able to support over 340 community-based agencies and projects that help people who are experiencing such problems. Located throughout the Island of Montreal, Laval and communities on the South Shore, these partner agencies provide assistance and comfort to over half a million people every year. At Centraide, the GM minivan is used to transport materials for events such as the March of 1,000 Umbrellas, which officially kicks off its annual fundraising campaign, and the Caring for Others School Project, which awakens children to the importance of volunteering and community service. The GM minivan also serves to deliver campaign materials to the many community agencies and corporations that organize workplace campaigns for Centraide’s benefit, and to transport participants during its many awareness activities, such as neighbourhood tours and agency visits. |
 |
|
 | |
|
|