Blog Posts

Making a Difference

11/17/2018

“I do spiritual care for the elderly and the dying, and when I sit with someone who is 90 and who doesn’t know who I am and can’t communicate, but has a sense that I’m in the room with them, I look at this whole life and think, wow, this person was 46, this person was 12, this person was 60, this person has experienced countless things – children, families, careers, work, love, loss, illness. Now they’re lying here in a bed. They’re moving toward dying. What can I do? Can I do anything? Is there anything to be done? And I somehow shift that into being with that one person in that moment. Even if it’s 15 minutes, simply being a witness to that life is making a difference in a life. And I feel that about the Green Wood dinner too. I’ve been sitting in the same place since I started coming. The people I’ve been sitting with, we have a bond now, and I think that’s making a difference in a life, building enough trust with a person that I trust them and they trust me and we can be ourselves together. When we connect, we are making a difference in each other’s lives. Maybe it’s a small difference, yet we don’t know what it’s going to bring. Our cultural broken bones can be healed when we eat together, talk together, get to know each other, release the fear of the other, of the different and somehow realize we’re actually not different. This is where we need to carry the vision of humanity forward if the human species wants to survive.”
—Celia McBride
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Making a Difference is a new series of personal stories by members of the Green Wood Coalition community. By building community through weekly Community Dinners, Green Wood makes a difference in a life.
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You can make a difference by donating to Support Green Wood’s work in Northumberland County. Click here: Donate to Green Wood
📷: Jeannette Breward

Recipe For Community

11/6/2018

From our earliest days, the community that has gathered around Green Wood, has pulled up to a table, each week, to share a meal together. Sitting side-by-side, we come from a wide range of experiences and opportunities to engage in conversations that matter, listen deeply, and leave the table satisfied and richer in human experience. Thanks to Cobourg, ON artist, Katie Flindall for interpreting the community table in the fantastic art piece/display table that we are showcasing at public events.

Green Wood Recipe for Community

1. Go out and find some people.
2. Eat and drink together.
3. Listen to each other.
4. Learn to judge less.
5. Work together to solve problems.
6. Celebrate birthdays, successes,
or just the sun coming up.
7. Make something beautiful,
art, music, dance.
8. Recognize our common humanity.
9. Imagine a better future.
10. Repeat with regularity.

Give thanks. Give back.

9/19/2018

Two local charities are teaming up to issue a community-wide challenge: give thanks by giving back this Thanksgiving by hosting a dinner, party or social gathering to raise funds for those in need.

Green Wood Coalition and Local Food for Local Good are inviting hosts and hostesses to register their family gathering, harvest party or community dinner in the Around the Table Thanksgiving Challenge.

“Thanksgiving is a time to gather with family and friends to celebrate what we’re grateful for,” says Nicole Beatty, Volunteer Executive Director of Local Food for Local Good. “The Around the Table Thanksgiving Dinner Challenge offers a way to express your gratitude by giving back.”

Between Sept. 21 and Oct. 21, hosts can register their dinner online, where they’ll find promotional material and fundraising tips. Suggestions include hosting the dinner in memory or in honour of a loved one, collecting donations in lieu of hosting gifts like wine, chocolate or flowers, or donating the proceeds of an after-dinner card party. The Thanksgiving event can take place any time during the registration period, and individual donors can request tax receipts for charitable contributions.

Green Wood Coalition Community Director David Sheffield says the need has never been more evident than in Cobourg this summer, where he's seen homeless individuals living “in the rough” -- in tents or park benches. The situation only worsens as the weather gets cold.

“When you gather around a table,
you’re saying ‘everyone is welcome, everyone belongs.’
When you leave someone sleeping on the street,
you’re saying, ‘you don’t belong."

Building this much-needed fundraising campaign around a powerful symbol of inclusion, while remembering how thankful we should be for what we have, goes to the heart of what Green Wood is about.

To learn more and register for the Thanksgiving Challenge, visit: www.thanksgivingchallenge.ca or email [email protected].

Coffee and Politics

9/14/2018

We're looking forward to some productive discussion when Northumberland Affordable Housing Committee hosts a Municipal All-Candidates Meeting in Port Hope.

Remembering Overdose Deaths

8/31/2018

Watch for the installation of flags of hope created by family and friends of people who have died of drug overdose in our community. Today is International Overdose Awareness Day. To learn more, click here.

Julie from PARN-Your Community AIDS Resource Network trains folks in use of Naloxone kits at yesterday’s Flags of Hope Overdose Awareness event in Cobourg. #overdoseawarenessday

We're Moving!

7/26/2018

What it Means to be Human

5/21/2018

Green Wood Coalition is proud to present Summer in the Forest, the 2018 documentary celebrating the life and work of philosopher and author, Jean Vanier.

In the 1960s, Vanier secured the release of four young men locked away because of their mental disabilities to found L’Arche, a community of love and compassion for the disabled. The film explores the beauty and wonder of the community Vanier created and challenges us to rethink what it means to be human, to be happy and to truly love.

This free showing takes place at 7 PM, Tuesday, June 5, at the Sculthorpe Theatre, Capitol Arts Centre, Port Hope.

Click to watch the trailer: Summer in the Forest

Every Year at This Time

5/13/2018

Members and guests are invited to join us for Green Wood's Annual General Meeting, following our Community Dinner, on Wednesday, May 30, at 7:00 PM. Please come in time for dinner, if that works for you (doors open at 5:00 PM, dinner at 6:00 PM), at our usual location, St. John's Church Hall, on Pine St. North in Port Hope. On offer--in addition to a great meal--will be, a celebration of the great things we've accomplished as a caring community, in 2017, a talk by Perry Bresee, a member of our Lived Experience Advisory Group program, as well as a look at the opportunities ahead for for us.

Crisis to Collaboration

5/11/2018

It’s hard to imagine this unfolding smoothly: days before Christmas, events led to the closing of Transition House, Northumberland County’s only emergency shelter for the homeless.

In a single moment, more than a dozen residents lose the roof over their heads.

This is a crisis, and crises involving vulnerable people with complex needs are not easily solved. You might say it takes a village to solve the homelessness crisis.

Those who stepped up to secure temporary, emergency accommodation – motel space – food and other urgent needs know one another well. They’ve been collaborating for years via an assortment of committees that deal with affordable housing, hunger, mental health, etc. But they weren’t necessarily prepared for something on this scale.

Kristina Nairn, Social Determinants of Health Nurse for the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit, says it helps to go back two years to understand what happened next.

In fall 2016 the Northumberland 20,000 Homes Campaign mounted a survey of the county’s homeless and at-risk of homelessness population. The campaign did everything right, she says, setting the standard for strong collaboration.

“That campaign was really a great example, and it spearheaded a lot of trust, collaboration and respect between the agencies. So when the shelter closed in December, very quickly a response was needed, so we all pulled together.”

Poverty is complex – its causes and solutions. Answers demand bringing the right people to the table – people with courage to act and skills to unite all of the crucial pieces – housing, policing, medical services, mental health, addiction supports, food and transportation. For the Transition House emergency, that core group involved the Salvation Army, Cobourg Police Services, Green Wood Coalition and the Help Centre, backed by Northumberland County Social Services staff, and the faith community, led by Rev. Neil Ellis.

If Stage 1 of crisis response is making sure everyone has a bed to sleep in, Stage 1a is placing people in permanent housing. And this is where Green Wood’s David Sheffield becomes “just a very key person in the collaborative process,” she says.

“Green Wood has coordinated the housing for individuals on a mind-blowing scale. He (David) knows landlords, he reaches out, he has relationships, he has incredible skills.”

With the Transition House crisis--as well as an evacuation of 7 seniors from a condemned building in January--in the past, David and staff assist residents to be housed in an area with an almost zero percent rental vacancy rate. Collaboration among the partners continues with their focus on planning and prevention.

“We proved we could do it. We are better if we work together. That’s the message,” says Kristina.

Want to learn more...follow these links:
County plans new emergency shelter system for Northumberland
20,000 Homes Campaign