Dear Friends, It was heartening to welcome 800 people to the 97 Victoria Open Houses. While we celebrated the completion of construction, the stark realities of the struggles people face continue to weigh on us. Our community has so much to give, but the many challenges people face are ever present.
I have worked for 25 years in many roles with agencies and services providing support to the community and particularly to those most vulnerable and marginalized. It was always a calling for me from an early age. Throughout those years I worked with so many wonderful people and had experiences and growth from the community I was present with. While the work was always well intentioned, there were systemic blockages which hindered truly aligned work. You could feel the blockages and the dissonance it created for individuals – a dissonance between your work-self and your true-self.
On April 5th, we celebrated the 36th Mayors’ Dinner in Marshall Hall at Bingemans. With over 860 guests, the room was at full capacity. This year our theme was Knowing our Neighbours. We gathered to celebrate the many ways people share themselves with our community, and to hear about building community and celebrating diversity and inclusion. We heard inspiring stories from Fauzia Mazhar and John Lougheed. We also updated the community on the construction progress and highlighted The Working Centre’s Making Home project at 97 Victoria.
Remarks by Joe Mancini at the 36th Mayors’ Dinner: There are so many people who are here tonight who contribute to The Working Centre. It is overwhelming to think about the deep generosity that has helped sustain TWC’s village of community supports.
It is an honour to stand before you tonight to reflect on the power of community and the meaningful connections we can build. This gathering is a testament to our shared commitment to creating a welcoming, inclusive, and vibrant Waterloo Region, where everyone feels they belong.
One of my mentors in ministry was the late Father Bernie Hayes, of the local Roman Catholic community. I remember him saying in a wedding homily: “You know I’ve never been married…” and amidst the gales of laughter, with his great sense of timing, Bernie added: “But, I hear it is hard work…and worth the effort!” This remarkable gathering tonight reminds us all that building community is hard – and at times, fun! – work together, and is always worth the effort.
Carol Taylor is widely known for her volunteer work with several different groups over many years, and has a long history of being a supporter of causes and organizations in her roles as senior staff member, Board Member and Committee Member. Her work and quiet leadership style have had a positive impact on many people’s lives and have strengthened our community.
This year’s Mayors’ Dinner theme, Knowing Our Neighbour, is about the positive social connections that engender dialogue and reciprocity. We all know the importance of neighbours. Can we become neighbourly people in the widest sense, can we strive to find positive ways to build community? The Dinner this year comes at a time when there is a discouragement for the divides that we see around us. Neighbourliness, the ability of people and groups to talk to each other, help each other out and learn from each other is a pathway to building community.
Dear Friends, this past year has been a year of movement and renewal. The structural steel beams creating a third floor for the 44 new housing units at 97 Victoria symbolizes the energy throughout The Working Centre, directed towards building and shifting spaces that make a difference in people’s lives.
This year, the Mayors’ Dinner helps us to reflect on the importance of determined hopefulness in the face of despair. Determined hopefulness is not a gentle wish for the future, it is an intentional act to choose the kind of world that we want to live in. It will take courage and it will take care. Looking at the world around us, the need for courage is clear.
The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.
This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.
In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.
