Outreach Opportunities Fund
The Outreach Opportunities Fund Committee selects outside organizations to receive a portion of the Sunday offering.
Outreach Opportunities Fund (OOF)
Chair: Yvonne Marcus
Statement of Purpose:
To distribute 25% of funds collected during the Sunday service to community charities, both those that are independent of the church and those that have some connection to the work of church committees. Priority is given to organizations undertaking social justice, refugee support and settlement and environmental sustainability work with a focus on vulnerable or other marginalized communities. Preference for funding is given to groups working primarily in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.
Members:
Cecilia Gruber, Jennifer Malcolm, and Melody Mason
Current Recipient
The next OOF recipient will be the Overdose Prevention Society (November 2022-February 2023).
The mandate of the Overdose Prevention Society (OPS) is to be leaders in the harm reduction movement with a continual push for change and justice, offer employment and advancement opportunities for members of the Downtown Eastside community, and continually work to break the stigma of addiction through empowering drug users and fighting against preconceptions of substance use.
OPS continues to challenge the normalization of the opioid crisis every day. We are a community driven, grassroots initiative that bring people in from the alley and provide a safe and welcoming place to use drugs.
Please watch this informative interview with Sarah Blyth, Executive Director and other OPS staff.
Services offered by OPS:
- Safe clean environment for people to use drugs
- Drug testing
- Harm reduction supplies
- Jobs for DTES community members
- Housing support
- Food distribution
- Clean and safe washroom for homeless
We are also home to MYSAFE
Contact for those interested in volunteering: vanops.volunteer@gmail.com
History of the Overdose Prevention Society:
OPS was founded in September 2016 by three women who were concerned about how little was being done about the growing fentanyl crisis in Vancouver. In potential violation of the law, they set up a drug injection site in an alley in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside to combat the many overdose deaths and have saved hundreds of lives. Their peer-based services are beneficial to the health authority, to the community, and to the participants themselves and ensure access to health and welfare services to excluded, vulnerable and marginalized people.
Future Plans
Three organizations will be selected to receive funds from OOF during the next year. In the past, the committee has chosen the recipients but we now ask members of the congregation to nominate local charities for consideration by the committee.
To nominate an organization, please click on this link: OOF Nomination Form or take a paper form from the bulletin board at the main entrance to Hewett Hall and leave it in the OOF mailbox in the UCV office or email it to Yvonne Marcus.
Previous Recipients
Here are some of the organizations we have supported in the past.
2022
Pivot Legal Society $2000
Wild Bird Trust of British Columbia $2000
2021
The Treehouse $3000
Mood Disorders Association of BC $2500
Indian Residential School Survivors Society $5000
Quest Outreach Society $2500
2020
Aboriginal Mother Centre $2000
PHS Community Services Society $2000
Burns Bog Conservation Society $2000
2019
West Coast Environmental Law $4010
Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre $2367
Sole Food Street Farms $2000
2018
Kiwassa Neighbourhood House (to be allocated to Warriors Against Violence) $2693
OWL Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society $1635
Rainbow Refugee Coalition $2000
2017
RAVEN Trust $2810
Qmunity $2800
Portland Hotel Society for activities related to Overdose Prevention Society $1681
Community Legal Assistance Society $2025
2016
Kinbrace – $1500.00
Vancity Community Foundation for activities related to Raise the Rates & Single Mother’s Alliance $3,000.00
2015
Mom2Mom – Child Poverty Initiative $2,000
Kinbrace $2000
2014
Pedal Foundation $400
ARA Mental Health (Action, Research and Advocacy) $1600
West Coast Mental Health Network $2000
2013
Covenant House (no record)
ACORN $2500
Kinbrace $3000
Aunt Leah’s Place $2500
2012
ACORN $2500
BC Coalition of People with Disabilities now the Disability Alliance $2500
Elizabeth Fry Society $1000
Rhizome Movement Building Centre $1500
VAST $1500
2011
Elizabeth Fry Society $2500