By Kara Peters Unrau
Published in June 2019
The 32nd Mayors’ Dinner was a full evening of community connections at Marshall Hall at Bingemans. Almost 1000 people crowded into the hall to hear stories about three grassroots approaches to health care.
Dr. George Berrigan and Evelyn Gurney RN were recognized as the heart of the St. John’s Clinic, the health care clinic located at St. John’s Kitchen.
Dr. Chris and Michelle Steingart were recognized for their work founding Sanguen as a charitable Hepatitis C clinic which has grown to provide harm reduction and health care services throughout Waterloo Region and in Guelph.
Dr. Michael Stephenson (Dr. Mike) and Margaret Brockett are the physician and associate director of Sanctuary Refugee Health Centre who have established this integrated medical hub for refugees.
Highlighting these community-based efforts was enlivening for all who attended. The evening demonstrated how dedication and vision are essential for efforts that work from the ground up. Together these three initiatives demonstrate how dedication, compassion, harm reduction, and the ability to support people through complex systems can create real change and new services that put people in the centre.
To start the evening, Margaret Nally offered a blessing, followed by a song of thanksgiving by the Gatako Singers. The four Gatako singers, Patrick, Seth, Deborah and Mika arrived in Canada on September 13, 2017 as refugees from Burundi, where their family lived in a large refugee camp for fifteen years. It was there that Patrick led a choir of some 40 young people singing songs that encouraged hope and expressed thanksgiving. Today they are all students at Eastwood Collegiate and it was an honour to receive their song of thanksgiving.
Neil Aitchison was once again our extraordinary Master of Ceremonies providing context on these projects and lots of humour along the way. Neil, as the live auctioneer, helped to raise $8700 on six auction items. Overall the dinner raised $60,000 for The Working Centre.
By far, the biggest success was the telling of the stories of Sanctuary, Sanguen, and St. John’s Clinic. The Working Centre’s Commons Studio produced four short videos that described this work. These videos capture grassroots health care in action, showing how this work is not about simply offering a menu of services but rather about following the person by offering the help each person needs in a way that is helpful and connected. The videos, combined with the words of the Guests of Honour are now on our website. Visit the What’s New section on our main website for a link – www.theworkingcentre.org .
The Mayors’ Dinner was an excellent forum that also served to highlight the spirit behind the Inner City Health Alliance. All three organizations are part of this alliance that sees itself as a responsive local village of health and social supports serving those living in vulnerable conditions, specifically the homeless and those at risk of homelessness, and refugees. Health issues for these individuals are complicated by lack of housing, experiences of poverty, family support, trauma and care.
Community based health care that can follow the person’s journey involves creative problem-solving work, which confronts each challenge as it emerges. This is a new way of offering health care, especially for people who are often left out.
All six Mayors’ Dinner honourees saw the issues in front of them and responded in ways that make their community a better, kinder, healthier place. Thank you to the many people who helped to make this a meaningful community celebration.
