United Way Greater Victoria and the Victoria Foundation are investing $735,000 into local charities to help them adapt their frontline services to support vulnerable citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 41 grants will help organizations across the Capital Region District, the Gulf Islands and north to Cowichan thanks to funding received from The Government of Canada’s Emergency Community Support Fund (ECSF).
Please see the full list of funded programs below:
United Way and Victoria Foundation Co-Funded Programs
Indigenous Perspectives Society
To help IPS continue to provide services and support staff and clients to interface with electronic communications and systems that are essential.
Pauquachin First Nation
To provide 120 families with weekly meal bags for 4 months (perishable and non-perishable food).
Nesting Doula Collective
To provide culturally affirming, anti-oppressive, and accessible postpartum support for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour in Greater Victoria and central island communities.
Peers Victoria Resources Society
To increase capacity to provide basic necessities support (camping gear), Coast Indigenous arts and medicine (drumming, dancing and cultural foods), and peer based social support to unsheltered persons in Lekwungen territory.
Community Options for Children and Families
To support program adaptation necessary to continue providing services in line with COVID-19 safety measures.
United Way Funded Programs
Backpack Buddies
To deliver its weekend meal program to vulnerable children in Victoria and Sooke, working with the school and community partners to ensure their food security.
Bridges for Women Society
To relocate to a new office that allows for socially-distant counseling, more remote work, and increased flexibility for service delivery.
Child Abuse Prevention and Counselling Society of Greater Victoria
To expand access to advocacy and resources for child and youth victims navigating the Justice system located in Greater Victoria’s Western Communities.
Connections Place Society
To support outreach and peer support, awareness building, inclusion, and community partnerships while targeting diverse populations experiencing heightened vulnerability.
Cornerstone Youth Society
To support the food take-out and hamper delivery service to ensure vulnerable youth have access to adequate nutrition.
Extreme Outreach Society
To turn the Annual Christmas Dinner for low income families into a Drive-thru, COVID-19 friendly event.
Galiano Health Care Society
To purchase a proper body refrigeration unit for morgue that allows for safe, clean, temperature-regulated and secure storage of the deceased, easily accessible for paramedics and funeral home staff.
Greater Victoria Eldercare Foundation
To use new interactive sensory technology – OMI projectors – to improve care for residents living with dementia in Victoria’s long-term care facilities, and to complement in-person therapies that cannot currently be delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Living Edge Community
To distribute recovered food market-style in ten areas of the CRD every week to persons and families who are food-deprived.
Mental Health Recovery Partners Society, South Vancouver Island
To support connecting with those with mental illness to ensure early intervention, relapse prevention and providing connection through low barrier easy access through trained peer support and outreach.
NEED2 Suicide Prevention
To support a classroom workshop that delivers mental health literacy and suicide prevention tools to Grade 8 & 10 students and staff in Greater Victoria.
Our Place Society
To provide evening and weekend showers, seven days a week at Our Place Drop-in Centre to include an additional 12-16 people per day for struggling adults who don’t otherwise have access to the physical, mental and health benefits of daily hygiene, with safe storage of their belongings.
Society of Saint Vincent de Paul of Vancouver Island
To renovate an existing kitchen for community access and to make it accessible to be able to be used by people with physical and mental disabilities.
Sooke Family Resource Society
To reduce the lengthy waitlist and meet increased demand for high-risk youth struggling with mental health issues, homelessness, violence and substance use.
The Anawim Companions Society
To support operational costs.
The British Columbia Lions Society for Children with Disabilities (Easter Seals BC Yukon)
To expand ESBCY’s successful virtual summer camps into the winter and spring to help address the mental health needs of PWD in the greater Victoria area isolated by COVID-19.
Victoria Conservatory of Music
To support implementation of COVID-19 safety measures.
Victoria Rainbow Kitchen
To continue serving the community by “filling the belly, while feeding the soul.”
Victoria Women’s Transition House
To provide emergency shelter services and outreach support from a second, additional, VWTH shelter location for women and their children fleeing intimate partner violence and abuse.
Victoria Foundation Funded Programs
African Art & Cultural Community Contributor Incorp.
To help IPS continue to provide services and support staff and clients to interface with electronic communications and systems that are essential.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Cowichan Valley (BBBSCV)
To implement a virtual mentoring program to replace and/or supplement BBBSCV’s in-person mentoring programs.
Esquimalt Neighbourhood House Society
To provide families with 750 – 1,000 bags of free non-perishable and frozen food and 100 reusable face masks.
Fondation d’aide culturelle canadienne-française de la Colombie-Britainnique
To provide language support to youth and seniors to navigate services in Greater Victoria – two underserved communities in the Francophone community.
VIDEA – a BC based International Development Education Association
To strengthen the skills, and resilience and build the leadership capacities of Victoria area Indigenous, racialised, LGBTQI2+, and vulnerable youth to address increased online hate and discrimination resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hulitan Family and Community Services Society
To provide food security to families experiencing the financial impacts of COVID 19, food hampers/gift cards provide opportunity for families’ money to go further.
Victoria Native Friendship Centre
To hire a full-time greeter/navigator for all clients coming to the Centre as part of the pandemic protocol, a critical position to keep the Friendship Centre open and safe at this time.
Island Community Mental Health Association
To continue a vital series of video recordings of music and other artistic expressions and relevant information produced for and by people with mental health challenges and substance use experience to be posted on social media to provide virtual connection opportunities for those facing increasing social isolation and to introduce and maintain awareness of Imagine After Hours drop-in social gathering place.
Islanders Working Against Violence
To provide essential supplies to enable our community’s homeless members to be warmer and drier this winter. Funding will purchase camping supplies for 30 people and winter clothing for 45 people.
Sooke Shelter Society
To support coordinating paid staff and wages to sustain organizational sustainability and to continue delivering essential services and relief efforts.
Together Against Poverty Society
To provide up to date information, advice and legal representation to individuals regarding federal COVID-19 income benefits.
Victoria Association for Community Living DBA Community Living Victoria
To provide a safe, fast, and effective response to COVID that ensures our care homes can navigate through the pandemic while maintaining the health of persons supported and our employees.
Cowichan Valley Intercultural & Immigrant Aid Society
To adapt newcomer services to virtual & blended environments, while preserving clients’ option to access services in-person in a safe, distanced & disinfected setting.
Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria
To increase connectivity and reduce isolation for immigrants and refugees by providing 250 clients with notepads, and to train 200 clients to ensure newcomers are able to continue the process of being active members of the local community during the pandemic.
The Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society
To deliver 10 new laptops with webcams to newcomer youth and their families to support their learning and access to remote services during the Covid-19 pandemic.
FamilySmart – The Institute of Families for Child and Youth Mental Health
To support operational costs for the “Parents in Residence” program, supporting families of youth struggling with mental health in Victoria, Westshore and Sooke.
YMCA-YWCA Vancouver Island
To support additional staff hours to support the increased needs and numbers of the youth being served at both programs.