StreetLife - Project417 - June 2009 Vol 6 Issue 8
Our friend Chuck - his portrait at the ROM exhibition June 2009
Dear Friends,
Thanks for reading the online version of the Project417 newsletter. This will give you the latest updates on Project417's ongoing mission to the homeless. We'd like you to be able to read more, but frankly, without continuing financial support from great people just like you, Project417 is unable to provide additional web content for the newsletter at this time.
Our financial needs for support right now are critical. Without your donations Project417 will not be able to continue to provide essential services in 2009. These services include:
Sandwich Runs to the Homeless
- more than fifty thousand meals delivered to date
- on average, we deliver a nutritious bag lunch to around 500 homeless street people every month
- more than two thousand church and school volunteers visit Project417 every year to help
- your donations provide for expenses to transport volunteers visiting the homeless, salaries for staff to provide volunteer safety and additional food, water, sleeping bags, and clothing during severe weather alerts
Project417 Urban Adventures
Short Term Missions - an urban, inner city experience - Project 417 has been hosting urban missions teams to the inner city in Toronto since the 1980's but is now growing this ministry through Project417 Urban Adventures (UA). Urban Adventures will provide teams with the opportunity to come to Toronto and participate in a variety of urban outreach experiences. The goals of this program are to effectively serve the at-risk, low income communities we reach out to, to impact the worldviews and opinions of students toward a more Christ-like view of the urban reality. UA provides missions opportunities to Youth (and other group) leaders that will be easy to plan and allow them to experience the trip alongside youth - providing discipleship along the way. UA is a partnership with CSM.Community Dinners
Over the years Project417 has helped several inner city and suburban churches implement a "community dinner" program to serve meals to low income families, people living in crisis and the homeless. Three of the programs continue to operate every week serving hundreds of guests nourishing meals and an inviting atmosphere. The longest running is at St. Stephen in the Fields Church in the Kensington Market area of Toronto. For more than 15 years, a breakfast program there Saturdays and now Sundays serves 20,000 meals a year. The Project417 Homeless Sandwich Run team leaders first started this breakfast program to immediately follow the Friday overnight street outreach which ran from 2 - 6am. The congregation at St. Stephens caught the vision and have shown real community commitment in keeping the breakfasts running even through financial hardships. The Knox Youth Dinner (formerly Knox Out-of-the-Cold) at Knox Church Toronto on Spadina, serves dinner every week Tuesday nights from November to April in the coldest weather months to more than 120 street involved, low income and homeless youth. They also operates a food bank the same nights for recently housed youth as well. The newest church partnership, in its second year, is in the Bloor West neighborhood serving upwards of 75 hungry guests every week, year round. Volunteers are always needed, and donations to purchase the fresh food every week, clothing bank donations are also accepted - or host a dinner at YOUR church!
The STEP Program Sex Trade Exit Program
STEP strives to help sexually exploited people in Toronto, Canada. The core of our work is to express the gospel in both word and deed and to engage in discipleship with our community. We do our best to address the suffering of those who are currently involved in prostitution and provide opportunities for change for those interested in exiting the sex trade. Project417 welcomes the addition of Tara McPherson, our newest faith-based missionary, to run the STEP program. For the past few months, STEP has run a late evening drop-in for women in the west end of Toronto every Thursday night from 9:30pm to 3:00am called Serenity Cafe.
Out of the Cold Program for Street Youth (November - April)
- established in the fall of 1996, by Rev. Joe Elkerton, in conjunction with Knox Presbyterian Church in Toronto, now known as Knox Youth Dinner & Foodbank
- this emergency shelter program was thhe first Out of the Cold program specially for street youth from 16 to 25 years of age
- currently the program has expanded to provide meals, a food bank, clothing depot, service referrals, and counseling; overnight sleeping accommodation can no longer be provided
- serves more than one hundred youth every week
- several of Project417's staff and volunteers are on site at Knox every week to provide mentoring to street youth, and assist Knox coordinate volunteers
Counseling Services
- Under the direction of Rev. Joe Elkerton, Project417 provides counselling services to the homeless
- clients include homeless men, women and youth, street involved youth and at risk families living in poverty
- counseling includes healthy lifestyles reinforcement, addiction counseling, anger management, and family counseling
- in addition Project417 staff have been trained and certified in Critical Incident Stress Management to be involved in emergency response services and disaster relief
- CISM components include: Group and Individual Crisis Interventions; Trauma & Addictions; Pastoral Crisis Intervention; School Crises
Street Outreach to the Homeless
- the staff and missionaries at Project417 conduct regular outreach to the homeless street population and at-risk inner city residents
- the Project417 model is not a traditional shelter based approach, rather it takes place out on the street where the homeless live
- the outreach comprises both individual one on one interaction and group settings
- in conjunction with the sandwich run ministry, it is the most relational of Project417's programs
- outreach includes: social program referrals; crisis intervention; personal friendship evangelism; discipleship; fellowship; faith community referrals
Short Term Missions
Hurricane Disaster Recovery - Gulf Coast - Hurricane Katrina - Hurricane Ike
- In September, 2005, the first short term mission teams from Project417, visited New Orleans for one, two and three week terms
- fifty volunteers in seven teams have gone on Project417 short term missions to New Orleans, Louisiana and Galveston, Texas
- Andy and a team of fifteen volunteers from Georgia State University visited San Leon, Galveston County, Texas to help with Hurricane Ike relief in the renovation of a storm damaged home belonging to a Vietnamese - American family
- there is currently no funding available for the next short term mission, but plans are to visit the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans in 2009 and team with Habitat for Humanity and the Fuller Housing Institute
- On TV - "The Old Man and the Storm, a PBS FrontLine documentary by June Cross describing the rebuilding efforts of Mr. Herbert Gettridge and his family in the Lower Ninth Ward, aided by volunteers (including Project417); the documentary aired Jan. 2009 and can be watched online at PBS
Thanks for reading this far. We hope you have a better understanding of the essential services Project417 provides to the homeless, both here in Toronto and where disaster strikes elsewhere. We need to continue. We need your support. Over 500 street homeless and 6,000 shelter housed men and women benefit from Project417's core ministries. Thousands in New Orleans and Texas are still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt.
A donation of $10 - $20 will help pay for our team leaders' expenses to support the volunteers for one evening's sandwich run. A donation of $50 will buy a Tim Horton's coupon book and give a panhandler a meal instead of small change in his cup. $500 = run a sandwich run van for one month. $1000 would pay for the travel of one short term mission team to New Orleans or fund two weeks of inner city street outreach. Partner with us today. Follow the links below to make your donation, online, or in the mail. Join with us to bring the love of Christ to those forgotten by society.
Sincerely,
Rev. Joe Elkerton
Executive Director
Ekklesia Inner City Ministries
Project417
