Vasie Papadopoulos

Here at Nellie’s, we are always forever grateful for the generosity of our donors near and far, in good times and in challenging times. And, as it is for many other essential programs and services around the city, these past few months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been challenging for us.

It’s because of our generous donors that we have been able to continue to provide day-to-day necessities of life as well as much-needed programs and services that foster learning. And, we’ve been able to step up our cleaning and disinfection measures, offer additional support and services for therapeutic healing during this challenging and stressful time and then move all of the women and children into a nearby hotel when an outbreak spread through our shelter in late-April.

One such donor that we’d like to highlight is Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. The company first supported Nellie’s with a $20,000 grant in 2018. They generously renewed their support in 2019 and again in early 2020.

“At Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, there’s a large focus for us to support women both corporately and in the community,” says Vasie Papadopoulos, Communications and Outreach Manager at Philip Morris International Inc. (Rothmans, Benson & Hedges’ parent company). “If we’re going to champion women internally, we wanted to look at some of the things we could do externally to champion women’s issues. That’s why we support Nellie’s. They help with employment, financial literacy, and more. And, then there’s the shelter itself. The more we support that, the more we align our company values at a very local level.”

Even though Rothmans, Benson & Hedges had already contributed to Nellie’s for 2020, when Toronto and much of Canada started shutting down in mid-March to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Vasie quickly called us to ask what else we needed.

“This pandemic happened very abruptly. It was a big pivot for everyone,” says Vasie. “When things started happening, we looked at our communities and asked ourselves ‘how can we help.’ We knew the longer the pandemic went on, the greater the burden would be on their services and their funding.”

When we got that very generous call, we were in the process of hiring 2 relief cooks to prepare additional meals for the women and children in our shelter. To encourage everyone to stay inside as much as possible, we introduced additional daily prepared meals as well as regular snacks to our schedule. Previously, only dinner was prepared for residents, leaving each person to use the kitchen to prepare their remaining meals for the day with groceries provided by us. Hiring more cooks and purchasing food daily greatly affected our bottom line. Rothmans, Benson & Hedges immediately stepped up with an additional $25,000 donation to help cover these costs.

“They were facing a very large additional cost and we decided we could help Nellie’s maintain the shelter and pay for the cooks to keep families fed. It was so important to us to support Nellie’s at this very basic level of keeping their operations going,” says Vasie.

“We want to keep doing more and we want to keep showing the community that we support communities across Canada. This is our way at a local, grassroots level of demonstrating our commitment to the cities and regions we operate in.”

Thank you, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and all of our donors, large and small. The women and children in our community count on us to be there for them when they need us and we thank every single person, community organization and corporation that is helping us to do so during this time.

To make a secure online donation, please visit our donation page. Or, you can make an even bigger impact by becoming a monthly donor. As a regular monthly supporter, your generosity provides critical and consistent funding towards our daily efforts to help women and their children impacted by abuse, trauma and homelessness. Automatic monthly payments are easy to set up, convenient, and create a lasting impact on the lives of women and their children at Nellie’s.

Two Toronto bars serve up Christmas in support of Nellie’s

How do you best a kitschy over-the-top Christmas pop-up bar that serves up only speciality Christmas-themed cocktails while donating $1 from every drink sold to Nellie’s?

By opening up a sister location, of course!

During the 2018 holiday season, Nick Kennedy (owner of the bar Civil Liberties) and Lauren McKenna, drew a lot of attention from both the media and Torontonians alike when they opened Miracle on Queen Street. It was the Toronto franchise of the worldwide Miracle pop-up concept that brings holiday-themed drinks and over-the-top Christmas decorations to cities across the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia and Central America. Nick and Lauren’s project, which took over an event space on Queen Street West, was the first in Toronto.

The bar opened on Black Friday and after it closed its doors on Boxing Day, Nick and Lauren presented Nellie’s with a cheque for $30,000.

And so, this holiday season, Nick reached out to fellow bartender Alfred Siu, owner of Project Gigglewater on Dundas West to join in on the fun. While Miracle is serving up kitsch and Christmas cocktails (this time on Ossington Ave. near Queen St. W.) from November 25 to Boxing Day, Project Gigglewater has transformed into a Sippin’ Santa cocktail bar and is serving up a love of all things tiki Christmas. Both are planning to donate $1 from every drink sold to Nellie’s.

“It’s a lot of fun. I love Christmas and I love tiki as well,” says Alfred. “It’s a little different from Miracle. We’ve decorated in more of a beach theme with thatching and bamboo everywhere. There are still presents hanging from the ceiling but we’re serving tiki-style drinks rather than just Christmas cocktails and we are all dressed in beach shirts.”

The idea for Sippin’ Santa was born in 2015 in New York City specifically as a companion pop-up to Miracle but with a tiki twist. Think of Santa on a surfboard instead of a sleigh and palm trees instead of pine. This year, 27 locations across North America are celebrating a festive love of tiki.

“We’re a smaller venue than last year’s Miracle but we are hoping to raise around the same amount of money as they did,” says Alfred. “Nellie’s is a really good cause. I’m really impressed with the work they do in helping to reduce violence and in supporting women and children.”

Thank you, thank you to Sippin’ Santa and Miracle Toronto for your support of women and their children who come to Nellie’s. We are beyond grateful for your generosity.

Nellie’s had a storage problem. Brighter Together built a solution

In recent years, Nellie’s has seen a dramatic shift in demographics — more women are arriving with their children to live in the shelter than ever before. Today, almost half of our current residents are children ranging in age from newborn to 15 years.

There are many challenges with having an influx of children in the shelter. For one, children have very different needs from their mothers and require different programs and services to help them work through the trauma they’ve experienced and the emotions they may be feeling in an age-appropriate way.

Another is more of a logistical challenge. More young children, means the need for more strollers at Nellie’s. But not only do we need more strollers, we also need somewhere to store them. Inside the shelter isn’t an option, because they have to be left in the hallways, which is a fire and safety hazard. And outside isn’t an ideal option either, because they risk being stolen from the yard and are subject to all weather conditions.

Dunya Knezic (who has also supported Nellie’s as a part of the committee that organized Karaoke for a Cause for the last three years) and Blayne Kumar of Bright Immigration decided to find a solution to Nellie’s problem. They formed Brighter Together, a non-profit arm of Bright Immigration, specifically to give Canadian immigrants an opportunity to give back to Canadian charities. Nellie’s became Brighter Together’s first charity of choice.

“Our approach is solutions-based problem solving and when we heard about Nellie’s, we quickly realized that there was no point in giving them strollers if they’re not going to be secured in a space,” says Blayne, owner of Bright Immigration.

“We had to build an outdoor shed.”

Through Brighter Together, they raised over $3000 to build a storage shed that met Nellie’s Shelter’s needs. A cookie cutter shed didn’t offer enough space. So Blayne and Dunya had to think outside the box and custom design and build a taller than average shed that maximized storage area. Construction took place on November 14, 2018. The new shed holds six to nine strollers at a time.

“The spirit behind Brighter Together is not just about donating to a charity,” says Dunya. “Anyone can do that. We are creating an outlet for Canadian immigrants to give back in a meaningful way. And we are so happy that supporting Nellie’s was our first project.”

Thank you Blayne and Dunya! Your generosity and problem-solving skills made a huge difference in the daily lives of the women and their children living at Nellie’s.

In July, the Queen Street West location of Urban Barn, Canadian home furniture retailer, redesigned and donated new furniture for the shelter’s living and dining rooms and children’s program area.

Residents were over joyed with the new look of their home, and the additional seating provided in the living and dining areas made the space much more comfortable for the increasing number of women and children that use the space. Apart from the beautiful new furniture, small touches like faux plants and wall hangings have helped make the shelter feel more homey and warm. The transformation of the kid’s room is remarkable from the bright colours, stripped rug to the kid-friendly poufs. The space is now more inviting to kids and moms alike. We are extremely grateful to Urban Barn for their thoughtful donation.