Thursday June 25th will mark the first of three summer park picnic potlucks. This is a time to get together in the middle of the week to eat a meal in the (hopefully) wonderful summer weather. At the moment the forecast is great.

We will meet at Victoria Park close to the Riverside Pool at around 5:45pm (so around Ave H South and 13 Street West). Bring whatever you normally would for a picnic in the park.

Future Dates:
July 23 - Forestry Farm
August 27 - Kinsmen Park

Looking forward to it!!!

Chantelle Kurtz passed this volunteer opportunity to me and I thought I would share it with the community. This would be a good way to interact with and minster to those in need in our neighbourhoods. If you have any questions please feel free to send her an email (click here).

I have an incredible volunteer opportunity to offer to all of you, and I am hoping that you will seriously consider giving of your time to help the work that will ultimately help those who are most vulnerable in our community.

Attached is a volunteer registration form for the 2015 Saskatoon Point In Time Count of Homelessness. The goal of this count is to gain a clear picture of the trends of homelessness in Saskatoon, compared to those from the last count conducted in 2012. This information is crucial for our community partners (like United Way, Saskatoon Housing Initiatives Partnership, Saskatoon Health Region, The Lighthouse, etc.) to create appropriate responses to best address these rapidly-changing and ever-growing needs. One of the biggest, most important pieces of work we are doing at United Way revolves around the Plan to End Homelessness and Housing First - the data from 2008 and 2012 has been crucial to this Plan and will continue to drive our work once we have these results.

Please have a look at the attached document for more information, and if you have any questions please feel free to ask me. I can't stress enough how important this night and this work is - 120 volunteers are needed to walk the streets, alleys, shelters, river path, and bridges of designated areas. I can guarantee that you will be impacted in some way through the stories that someone will share, the things you will see, and the realities that will become apparent to you as you help collect data.

I invite you to share this information with anyone you think may be interested, and if you are able to participate I sincerely hope you will.

Medicine Hat recently announced that they have ended homelessness in their city - we can do that here in Saskatoon, but it takes a community coming together and engaging on a deeper level.

Thanks,
Chantelle