The pandemic has resulted in a tough go for L’Arche Sudbury, which is why a $121,700 grant through the Ontario Trillium Foundation is a particular boon.
So described community leader Jennifer McCauley following a media event on Friday announcing the grant, which she said will go a long way toward helping both the organization and those living with intellectual disabilities they support.
“We want to make a difference in our community,” she said, adding that they’d like to better link with the broader community, which this funding will help them do.
The funds will go toward the paycheque of a newly hired resilience leader, who will draft wellness newsletters for the organization, host monthly events, work on a new website and order materials as needed.
“It’s a pretty broad role,” McCauley said.
L’Arche Sudbury supports people who live with intellectual disabilities at three homes in Sudbury, which each support five people. They also support a man who lives with his family and have an additional eight core members who live with their families or individually with job coaching, volunteerism and program support.
For core residents, she said, “All aspects of their daily lives” are supported.
“It’s not a service-delivery model where the core members are only there to receive care, we really live together as a family.”
Core member Kitty Kehoe attended Friday’s funding announcement, at which she enthusiastically introduced Sudbury NDP MPP Jamie West.
“They treat people friendly,” she told Sudbury.com of the organization, adding that they always make her feel welcome.
Kehoe inspired the creation of the Good Neighbour Award program, in which community members nominate people for their good work, West said, adding that it came out of her words, “You need to look for the good.”
L’Arche Sudbury is a “genuine, caring place,” West said, whose members “really amplify a really good, genuine feeling, where you feel happy and welcome and part of the community.”
After facing some strict restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down much of their programming and restricted residents’ movements, McCauley said they’re ramping things back up, which the grant will help them with.
Last week, the organization also received a $100,000 donation from the Bishop Alexander Carter Foundation toward an upcoming building on Bancroft Drive.
The new building will be a 28-unit residential complex with both affordable housing for people living with intellectual disabilities and market rentals for the general public.
A community gathering space and offices will also be included in the $24-million build, for which a formal fundraising process will begin soon.
For more information about L’Arche Sudbury, click here.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
