Hopeful in Halifax

Our day started off nice and early by meeting the staff of both the Delta Halifax and the Delta Barrington in the lobby at 8:15am. Mother Nature was not on our side to build a deck at the Metro Turning Point which is a Shelter for men in the Halifax Metro Centre so we headed off to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Dartmouth. Thanks to Tracy Gates (our tour guide) we arrived on time and were quickly shown how to build shelves from scratch for the shelter.

Suzanne and I met some amazing women who both work and volunteer at the Restore. They were very empowering and invited us to take on some of the bigger tools such as the saw! Let’s just say our adrenalin was flowing! We cut, we sanded, we drilled etc.

Empowered!

After a morning of hard work all the Delta and Habitat staff floated (due to the massive rain storm) to the shelter where more Delta volunteers stood in the rain and served what ended up being an amazing barbeque for the 76 men who were at the shelter.
Bill Pratt the Executive Director of Saint Leonard’s Society of Nova Scotia took us on a tour of their facility and talked about their hopes and aspirations.

As the rain came down all the volunteers took out their umbrellas and marched the men to the BBQ site for a nice warm meal. This is where I had the liberty of meeting Dave. Dave is originally from Port Hood, NS and has been living at the shelter for approximately 3 months, he told me although it is not home, it is certainly a great home away from home and that no one is ever turned away!

After all the men were fed, the volunteers were rewarded with a great burger and hotdog! And for dessert… well we handed over a cheque for … over 74 THOUSAND dollars!

It was a great day and although it was not the ideal conditions for a BBQ it was a great reminder to all of us that some people simply do not have a warm home to go to, dry clothes to change into and the abundance of hot food at their leisure.

Charlene