The story of The Welcome In Drop In Centre and its ongoing journey
The Welcome In Drop In Centre is inviting on a cold day, providing a safe place for people to get warm. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., 365 days a year, the Drop In Centre offers food, shelter, and support in the Guelph community.
A variety of people pass through the Drop In Centre’s plain glass doors, each with their own individual needs and stories. Some suffer from mental illness, addiction, and homelessness. Others come for social interaction and structure in their lives. Donations of food, clothing, and toiletries arrive year-round. People can pick through the pantry once a week and take home up to five items each. Above all, the Drop In Centre is like a family supported by an amazing community of volunteers, clients, and staff.
When Sister Christine Leyser founded the Drop In Centre in 1983, it was with a message of “food and friendship.” Meals are served twice daily, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and it was her insistence that food always be free and that coffee be 25 cents. She has been described as warm, but no pushover. Sister Christine, now in her 80s and no longer working at the Drop In Centre, has left a lasting legacy, and many people remember her as the person they owe their lives to.
Brian Trimble, 70, looks back on his experience at the Drop In Centre: “I’m a schizophrenic, alcoholic, drug addict. It’ll be 14 years coming up December that I quit. I quit smoking, drinking, and drugging all at the same time. The reason I quit was Sister Christine. She said, ‘Brian you can’t go on like this anymore.’ She showed me the right road to go down. She worked with me and worked with me. I love her, God bless her.”
Today, Trimble helps serve coffee at the centre. “There’s givers and takers in the world,” he said. “There’s people that give and help, and there’s people that take and never give back. For the longest time I was a taker.”
Gail Hoekstra, a U of G graduate and executive director, first started working at the Drop In Centre as an outreach worker in mental health. It was here, some 20 years ago, that she first met Sister Christine. Since then she has looked up to Sister Christine as a mentor. Six years ago the two focused on making the centre a hub for services like the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).
Under CMHA people can access the following services: outreach, senior, court, and mental health. Unfortunately, services can become stretched, as addressing people’s needs requires numerous resources.
“Even though they have difficult life situations,” said Hoekstra, “they’re resilient and they struggle and they’re giving. It’s really one of the most giving communities I’ve been in. And so any one of us that works here loves being here for those reasons. We get to meet the most interesting people that are very generous in spirit and experience.”
Hoekstra mentioned Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a template to improving people’s lives. The hierarchy begins with food and shelter as a foundation and then progresses in stages towards people’s emotional needs. Unfortunately, affordable housing is a problem, especially for those who are already receiving social services and still finding money to be tight. Candace Wrixon, manager of housing programs at the Drop In Centre, works with services like homeless shelters to ensure people have a roof over their heads. As shelters only offer a maximum stay of 28 days and space is limited, it’s the long-term housing efforts that are most important. From there people can get on their feet and begin to improve their lives.
The Streetwise Community Initiative, funded by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, gets people involved in recreation and volunteering activities. Housing Stability support worker Carlin Dykstra at the Drop In Centre runs the initiative and organizes events like volleyball, bowling, and dances. The aim of the initiative is to improve community integration, safety, and wellbeing.
It is through these services that people can build their lives from the ground up. The ultimate goal is to give people hope and purpose in their lives.
Sometimes basic shelter is hard to come by. During the winter it becomes a daily struggle for people to get out of the cold. Clay Fry, who is homeless and currently sleeping in a heated restroom, visited the Drop In Centre and said: “A lot of us don’t have anywhere to go in the nighttime. We freeze.”
Fry started a petition called Score Some Help (SSH) in an effort to generate ideas towards a solution. The opening sentence reads: “I am writing this petition to ask whomever it may concern to support the concept of putting in place a warm and safe spot for the homeless and stranded people of Guelph to escape the bitter cold at night and during the day if in need.”
SSH goes on to outline that as well as shelter, people will be able to work on themselves through a variety of services. Fry presented SSH on Nov. 15 at city hall’s Thursday morning open forum, and has thus far received some 130 signatures, including members of council. Fry is aiming for 400 signatures.
Improving people’s lives is an ongoing process. There are up and downs; some people make it and others don’t. As a reminder of the important work done at the Drop In Centre, a wall of remembrance is on display with pictures of people who have passed away. The pictures are not always of the people at the age of their death, or at their hardest times, but are rather pictures of them at their best times.
A question I asked the many interesting people I met at the Drop In Centre was “what would you want people to know about the people that come here?” The answer was always the same: that there’s a richness in these lives, each one with an amazing story to tell.
As the holidays approach many of us may find ourselves wanting more. Places like the Welcome In Drop In Centre help us to realize that ‘more’ often means so little when we see the bigger picture; places like this can help all of us to grow, to realize that rather than wanting more we should strive to give more — whether those are material things, our time, or simply our understanding — this holiday season and all year around.
Happy Holidays, Guelph.
Photos by Alora Griffiths/The Ontarion